In Chapter 1, Virginia Axline describes her first sight of Dibs in a corner, crouched, head down, arms across his chest, ignoring the fact that it was home time and resisting his teacher’s attempts to get him to go home. If Dibs had not stopped resisting by the time his mother arrived, the chauffeur would be sent in to collect him.
Dibs had been in private school for two years. Initially he had been mute and had not moved; then he had started crawling around the room but had huddled in a ball if anyone had approached him; he had never looked directly at anyone and had never answered anyone. He had come every day without a problem but had waited for someone to take his coat off and take him to the class; he had looked at books a lot. Sometimes he had appeared mentally retarded and sometimes intelligent. He had never accepted anything but would pore over pages of books left near him. The teachers had tried everything to gain his interest but were baffled; the psychologist had been unable to test him, and Dibs had been wary of the paediatrician.
Dibs’s mother had influenced the school board to accept him but had refused the offer of professional help; his father was a well-known scientist and his younger sister a ‘spoiled brat.’ With other parents complaining after Dibs had scratched another child, his mother had been told that the school was thinking of excluding him and there had been a case conference to which Miss A (as Dibs called her) had been invited. The staff were obviously captivated by Dibs and had agreed to her suggestion of play therapy.