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Slowly he learnt to enter the world of autistic people, watching their repetitive, seemingly meaningless actions, their violent self-destructive behaviour. But it is the moments of joy, of hope, of life that are his most striking visual discoveries and that shine out of his photographs. Once he had stepped through the looking glass, he found himself in an unpredictable and disturbing world.

One day, Dexheimer recounts, he lay on the ground amongst a group of autistic children while a nurse read them a story. He wanted to be on their level, to try and see what they saw. A little girl was lying beside him making disjointed movements like a baby exploring its new world. Suddenly she kicked him in the face before lying down on his chest and going to sleep. Dexheimer did not dare move—he felt that she trusted him. Then she leapt up and walked away, as if he did not exist. He felt completely frustrated and immobilized. He took no photographs that day, but something had happened in Dexheimer’s understanding of the autistic world, something, he says, that is reflected in subsequent photographs.

In the few specialized centres in France, such as the ones where Dexheimer worked, the emphasis is on education and personal, individualized projects like helping with the washing-up, drinking out of a glass or looking after a rabbit. The staff are mostly educators with only a few doctors and nurses. They work on a one-to-one basis with the residents, their days sometimes stretching to 18 hours. The concentration and patience involved are exhausting.

The importance of the sense of touch for autistic people has been captured by Dexheimer. In his pictures hands are reaching out, calming, or holding during a crisis. In the swimming pool, where they discover how to relax and unlock their frozen limbs, in karate lessons, stroking animals or just horsing around in the garden, the residents learn to relate to each other and their carers, however briefly, before returning to their silent, anguished worlds. Dexheimer’s photographs show all these aspects, always with an edge of hope, with the idea that progress is possible, that tomorrow maybe just one individual will make a step, however small, towards some kind of happiness.