Customer Reviews

Understanding the Nature of Autism And Asperger's Disorder: Forty Years Of Clinical Practice And Pioneering Research

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This book,ritten by a pioneer in autism genetics, is a must for anyone involved in the field of autism. Particularly valuable for parents of newly diagnosed children. Carey Zuckerman, Preident of the Manhattan Autism Society

I think I found the gist of the book at last, although nothing came to my mind just after reading all through. Dr. Ritvo set an inspiring example of mild/high functioning autism(M/HFA) i.e., the famous movie, Rain Man, which really cracked me up! Raymond with M/HFA stopped in the middle of the intersection when he saw the sign, "DON'T WALK". The point is he took the sign literally, but didn't understand the meaning. Of course, for typical people, this WAS a real disaster which caused road rage. I have seen Rain Man once, but I felt as if it had nothing to do with me. However, I realized people with developmental impairments are likely to make the similar mistakes after being diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger syndrome(AS). In other words, I'd say people with developmental challenges often find it difficult to catch social languages and cues like Raymond.

I know Rain Man is quite an extreme example of M/HFA. To be quite honest, I got pretty upset first time I found the sentence, "Congratulations you have Asperger's syndrome" in Prof. Tony Attwood's book, An Complete Guide to AS. As it turned out, I just jumped the gun. I thought, "You call this Congratulations!? Get out of here, this disorder will last forever and I have to deal with my AS for the rest of my life!" On second thought, I recognized Prof. Attwood implied people with AS have different brain wiring and way of thinking, which nobody else could have. They aren't had, defective, and crazy at all. Jumping the gun like this can slow a reciprocal communication to work smoothly , that's for sure!

I'm not sure about the details of this book, but I'm going to reread it to deepen my understanding!