Customer Reviews

Nadia: A Case of Extraordinary Drawing Ability in an Autistic Child

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Nadia, the child with severe autism featured in this book was noted for her unusual ability to draw roosters and horses. Born in 1963 in England, the Russian-English girl was raised in a bilingual Russian-English household as her mother was Russian. The second of three children, Nadia remained largely nonverbal.

Nadia's mother died when the girl was quite young; by age 5 Nadia was drawing detailed roosters and horses. She was enrolled in a special needs class and as she became more verbal, her remarkable drawing ability dropped. This raises the question of whether or not developing language intruded upon the parts of her brain that created the drawings. That is a theory that people have expounded upon over the years.

One wonders what of Nadia, the adult and what progress she has continued to make. Overall, the book was rather tediously written, with what appeared to be much extraneous detail and statistics. It does beg the question of what more of Nadia, herself. Still, a good book for autism history and a special talent in someone with severe autism.

I looked at this book in a bookstore 30 years ago and repeatedly thought about it. It keeps coming up in references and articles so I decided to buy it now. The book is everything that I expected and more, great art and interesting story.