Autism Chapter Summary

One of the first books I found at Barnes and Noble was In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, which is a book about the history of autism, and includes the challenges faced by those with autism and their families. According to this book, the first case actually diagnosed was a little boy named Donald Triplett who exhibited many of the typical behaviors for children with autism. “He almost never cried for his mother.”(Donovan, J. and Zucker, C. 2016, pg.5). “He would turn violent the instant his activities were interrupted, whether he was sketching words in the air or spinning pot lids on the floor. Over time, it became clear that he was protecting something: sameness. Pure unadulterated routine.”(Donovan, J. and Zucker, C. 2016, pg.5).

This book assists individuals in understanding how the brain of an autistic person may work by explaining her thought processes. This in turn provides the reader with an unusual insight into autism. Ms. Grandin discusses the theory that autism has a biological causes. Her explanations provide detail on how the structures of the brains of autistic individuals are different. She has a brain with an elongated left ventricle, and states “we now know that a ventricle elongated to this extent seems to correlate with some symptoms that identify me as autistic.” (Grandin 2014, pg. 22). This is important information because this is how the discovery, autism is organic and not caused by the environment was confirmed. Furthermore, recent discoveries have concluded that “various autistic characteristics are associated with varying locations of genetic differences” (Boutot 2017 pg 7). This too points to biological not environmental causes. The information in this book provides great insight into the brain of an autistic person in easy to understand manner while providing important information to assist the person with autism and their

However, this book is written from the point of view of a thirteen year old boy instead of an adult as in the case of Temple Grandin. This entire book is in a question and answer format that provides a unique way to understand these individuals. He discusses what it is like to have feelings and thoughts, but not be able to communicate them through speech. In his case, he can sing and read books aloud, but words disappear when he tries to carry on a conversation. This is an example of an individual with autism having “deficits in other conversational skills, such as initiating conversation, asking questions, sharing information or elaborating on a topic.” (Boutot 2017,pg. 103) To solve this problem, he uses a letter board to communicate with others. Immature language patterns may be the way an individual with autism communications. But, this does not mean this is the level of their thought. Many of these individuals think at a higher level, but can’t find the words to use when speaking. This is an important point to remember when working with those that have autism, because as he points out “true compassion is about not bruising the other person’s self respect.” (Higashida 2016, pg.15). Furthermore, the language spoken by these individuals may be in a peculiar way because of the time needed to access words and what words they can actually locate to continue a conversation. The ability “to recall