There's A Boy In Here Analysis

There’s a Boy in Here is a book about the life of Sean Barron, written by Sean himself and his mother, Judy Barron. Together they tell of the different situations they have encountered and dealt with because of Sean’s autism, both from Judy’s point of view, and Sean’s point of view. Early in the book, Judy explains of the joy she and her husband, Ron, felt about having their first child, Sean. Very quickly she transitions into telling about the atypical behaviors that she noticed in Sean right away, but she quickly chalked them up to be her own fault, blaming herself for being a bad mother. The older Sean got, the worse his behavior became, and the more Judy realized that she was not at fault for the way in which Sean was acting. Sean often

The book provided a good insight as to what it is like to live with someone who has autism spectrum disorder, as well as what it is like to live with autism. In the case of Sean, autism had a major impact on his communication skills. He did not start speaking until a much older age than he should have, and some of his first words involved him telling the time. Reading the book, I learned about what it looks like when a person with autism has prosodic impairments to their speech, and I could also see and evaluate how the pragmatic aspects of Sean’s speech was effected. Sean’s communication with others was very effected by his autism, too. He was bothered by people. He did not like the fact that they were all different, and that he could never know what someone would do to him, therefore he simply avoided socializing with people. Being able to see how the disorder effected not only Judy, but also Sean, helped to give me a better understanding as to how I could approach someone who has autism. I learned a lot about what was going through Sean’s head when he was doing his repetitive behaviors, and that these behaviors were soothing and calming to him. Sean enjoyed the fact that when he flipped the light switch, he knew exactly what light it would turn on, and that it would do the same thing every time. This repetition gave Sean security. If I were to meet someone who had a repetitive behavior like Sean’s, I would now know that this is something that most likely gives them security, and that if I were to show disappointment in them for partaking in this behavior, they would not understand that I was unhappy with their behavior and not them. There’s a Boy in Here also helped me to realize that when I meet someone with autism, I need to be very understanding and considerate of their thoughts and what they like to do. Also, I would make sure that I am approaching them realizing every case of autism is