BB FANS

I work with a child with Aperger syndrome and I read the book and thought it was fantastic. (Curious incident of the dog in the night time.) I then lent it to his parents and she bought copies for her whole family. I found it a brilliant read but then I am interested in that subject, but it is a fascinating well undestood book.

Trust me, you would. Its one of the most original books of this year and lifts the lid on a fascinating and poorly understood subject. Its also very funny in parts and captures the 'mindset' of someone with an ASD very very well.

Madam Darkheart is Autistic (low functioning) and Mrs Darkheart and I both read it and also bought loads of copies for family members.

Darkheart: bigging up autism books today

I found that book better and more insightful than any refernce book etc on the subject......and of course experince!

I'll think about it, not really into autism, especially after that TV documentary by the bbc with those three autistic boys and their mother... the boys seemed perfectly normal to me and acted like I did at their age (and like I still do), how should I put this... I don't think there was a thing wrong with them, they just didn't seem anything like other autistic kids... I dunno why thats made me not interested in autism, it just has.

BUT THATS OFF-TOPIC!

The book offers insight you say, does it offer anything else? Phylosophical, whatever, does it have depth? Or is it all about the character and Aperger's? Is the character likeable or IS the disease (disease?) the protagonist? If you get my meaning.

I'm intrigued, would like to hear more .

p.s. thanks for alerting me to this, previously I'd ignored it.

there you go egor have spit it now so we can discuss it if anybody wants to. It is about a boy with Asperger syndrome (not a disease) and he struggles to make sense of the world around him especially in the midst of his parents marital breakdown. The author obviously had a good eal of knowledge about the subject.

Autism is on a scale, or spectrum so there is usually a collection of character traits but some may be more severe than others. Asperger is whats known as the high functioning end of Autism. I would strongly recommend the book. (have I said that? sorry)

Great book, not only as an insight into Autism but also!

You can recommend it as many times as you like, thanks I'll give it a go cos I clearly don't know much about the subject (bah, no smiley face icon (one that isn't a grin that makes me look like I've just killed someone), I'm so used to putting smilies at the end of things )

Ahh, scale, autism, I see, they really should have chosen more autistic kids then, because I honestly couldn't tell the difference between those three and me and my two brothers, and I ponder as to whether diagnosing them with it (even if they do have it) was such a good idea , again, off-topic!

And thanks for the thread split .

Oh boy. I assume you're talking about the Jackson family? If you are then you are doing them a grave disservice. The trouble with ASD is that visibly nobody looks 'handicapped' but that masks a lot of issues. Just because a person seems to behave in a certain way during one brief slice of time doesn't mean they're not affected. The Jackson family have 4 boys who are in various places on the spectrum. Luke, who narrated a lot of the program you saw has Aspergers, same as the lead character and is High Functioning at that. Joe, his younger brother is diagnosed with ADD, also on the autistic spectrum and Ben the littlest boy is, like Madam Darkheart, classically Autisitic. The oldest boy has Dispraxia and is the most 'wordly' of all 4 boys.

I take it from your comment that you're not really 'into autism' that that means you don't actually know anything about it or know anyone who is on the spectrum? If so, then you definitley need to read the book- its not a book about Aspergers, its a book about someone close to your age who is diagnosed with Aspergers. I really hope that above everything else it might offer you an insight into the way an Autist thinks.

Oh, no, I've known (and still know one) several autistic people, the boys in that documentary didn't seem autistic to me, its highly likely they were, but then I were puzzled by comments such as '<insert name here> always walks around with little clothes because alot of autistic children have sensitive skin... ... ...I walked around with next to nothing at that age, as I'm sure alot of people have done at that age... its more comfortable! Especially at that age where your body seems a whole lot more sensitive anyway and the heat can really get to you.

What I mean is, their autism didn't seem to be a problem, the family functioned just like mine did at those ages.

Sorry, just one more thing, I didn't expect them to look handicapped, because this is autism we're talking about, the way they functioned didn't seem autistic, it seemed PERFECTLY normal.

I get whaty you're saying but your operating under a few assumptions. Namely, there's no one thing that is 'autisitic' behaviour. Autists at different points on the spectrum have a different set of 'stims' but they all operate under a loose set of conditions called the Triad of Impairments which are communicational, imaginative and social interaction.

I'm sorry you were puzzled by things like a lack of clothing indicates auitsm or its lack- the sensitive skin issue is the important point, not the wearing of clothes. A lot of Autists have extreme sensory issues e.g. they cannot tolerate certain noises, colours, smells or sensations. This isn't them being uppity, Madam Darkheart for example jams her hands over her ears and screams when a car goes past as she doesn't know how to deal with the sensory overload. The theory is that Autists cannot filter input like we can (e.g. we decide if we're crossing a road that teh dog barking 2 streets away isn't important so we disregard it but an Autist can't- they hear everything)



I'm curious to hear your thoughts about how Autists function. Believe me, the thought processes of someone on the spectrum are far from 'normal'- anotehr theory states that Autists have no theory of mind, that is to say that they cannot see themselves as individuals nor see that otehr people are individuals either- its one of the reasons Luke Jackson (and a lot of Autists of school age) get bullied, to an Autist, if they know about the bullying then everyone knows or to put it more accurately they don't know you don't know about it. The bullying of Luke Jackson only stopped because his therapist taught him over a period of years to realise that if something happened to him at school he needed to tell someone.

Okay, for me the central thing about autism (not really central, more like the most obvious thing I associate with it) is the senses, I think I'll use a stupid example, a dog is as far from autism as you could imagine with regards to it's hearing, ie. non-autistic humans can block out sounds/ignore them in a similiar way. Like when you read a book, you stop seeing the words after a while, you see the world its drawn you into, sounds around you are still there, you know they're there, you can hear them, but you go into a state of trance. Now, I'm not saying autistics with those symptoms of not being able to sense things correctly can't go into a trance, that was an example of how we block things out, I think autistics, from my limited experience, can't do that.

The other thing is, your daughter sounds autistic to me. The boys I watched in that TV program must have lacked this symptom altogether or it was quite mild, but I'd go for the former because I just didn't see it as being much of a problem to them, EVERYTHING they did I've done and many non-autistics I know have done, can't quite describe it, I guess the lack of clothes would be the best example.

Not being able to distinguish between others and themselves is an interesting one because its something that during our developing years we simply cannot do, I just find that interesting, thats all .

I guess my main problem is that if they had autism in that program it didn't seem to affect their lives in any way.

The kid who seemed to have a keen interest in computers, a VERY KEEN interest, it could be autism, it could just be a very keen interest that almost everyone develops in something at that age, couldn't tell the difference between him and me there...

Like if you blindfold people and put them in a room you expect them to act differently, the autistic kids just didn't seem to, I didn't notice them being more sensitive than things than is normal...

Course, they could have just had different symptoms...

I know what you mean but thats mainly as it was a very upbeat program. I really recommend you read Luke Jacksons own book, Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers about how ASD affected his life or their mum Jaquis book, Multi Coloured Mayhem about all her boys. They'll give you a greater insight into how each of the boys is affected.

Irony is, from my point of view, your quote above is very optimistic- unfortunately, you only saw a very brief, highly edited slice of time- none of the struggle before the boys were lucid and 'there' anough to participate was shown.

I bought that book yesterday, I've heard a few people saying it's really good. i have't started it yet as I'm reading another book at the moment but I'm sure I will soon.