Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone

When I recommend that people buy just one book about autistic people, this is usually it. It powerfully destroys stereotypes about autistic people whose primary mode of communication is not speech, including the idea that we all have the same experience of the world or that we all came to our current method of communication in the same way (or even that we all use the same method of communication). It also deals with the routine underestimation of autistic people that happens as a matter of course, and the folly of the ongoing automatic classification of some autistic people as 'low-functioning'.

This is an outstanding book, one of the landmark publications to date from the literature of autistic people speaking for themselves. Of course autistic people can and do communicate. Scientists have defined the category of autism by an impairment of communication, not its absence. Nor do the criteria say anything about intelligence (however that concept may be defined). Readers will discover that Douglas Biklen, the book's co-author and editor, addresses these issues in the introductory chapter: "In light of the controversy, this book includes [with one exception] individuals who can type without physical support or who can speak the words that they type, before and as they type them and after they have typed them." It's interesting that the present controversy echoes similar debates that have occurred in the last century regarding the capabilities of deaf people, people with cerebral palsy, people of non-European descent, and so on. Those debates included assertions from the existing power structure that the dis-empowered class of people (whoever they happened to be) couldn't/didn't/shouldn't speak for themselves. Sound familiar? A bit more on the science and how this book addresses it. Why, and among whom, is FC (facilitated communication, or typing with the help of another person) controversial? The primary reason is that peer-reviewed publications, including controlled studies, show mixed (not only negative) results. On page 9, Biklen elaborates: "Controversy has swirled around the method of facilitated communication because it has been shown that a facilitator's physical touch of the typist's hand or arm could influence the person's pointing, and because a number of studies failed to validate authorship ([13 references cited]). Each of the above studies used one basic type as assessment, namely, message-passing; the person being assessed was asked to convey information that could not be known to the facilitator. Other studies, using a range of test situations as well as linguistic analysis and documentation of physical, independent-of-facilitator typing, have successfully demonstrated authorship ([11 references cited])." So the controversy is in fact not a matter of scientists vs. nonscientists, but of debate based on evidence and reason (with some emotion thrown in from all sides; the parties involved are only human, after all). From the scientific literaure, here's an example from researchers at Harvard and MIT: "The case of a 13-year-old boy with autism, severe mental retardation, and a seizure disorder who was able to demonstrate valid facilitated communication was described. ... This case study adds to the small, but growing number of demonstrations that facilitated communication can sometimes be a valid method for at least some individuals with developmental disabilities." (Weiss MJ, Wagner SH, Bauman ML. Mental Retardation. 1996 August.) Since that study, scientists have published further work suggesting that auti

Finally a book that challenges some of the most dangerous and pervasive beliefs on autism today-- that people are "alone" and without social interests, deep relationships, joy, passion, and love; that our job is to find what is wrong and to change it; and that the professionals must lead the way in this quest for undestanding autism. Biklen and his colleagues with autism (Jamie Burke, Sue Rubin, Larry Bissonnette and others) help us see that people with this label are leading lives that are complex, challenging, interesting, and rich and that our "job" in education (or human services) is to listen and collaborate. Further, this book demonstrates that it is people with autism themselves who need to define, explain, and teach about their label and their lives. I have already read this book twice and given a half a dozen away to colleagues. If you only buy one book on autism this year- "Autism & The Myth of the Person Alone" should be that book.

There are many authors on the autistic spectrum who profess to know how non-verbal people think, feel or experience and its easy to imagine that people with a shared label can all speak for each other. Fact is, however, non-verbal people have always borne the brunt of fanciful, patronising and condeming projections alike. From claims they are all fairy spirits, to claims they all think in pictures, to claims they are all trapped geniuses or that they are all mentally retarded, non-verbal people have lived on the side-lines listening to, sometimes reading this stuff, waiting to have their own say, to have that say respected and published. Born in the diagnostic ignorance of the 1960s, as a person with dysfunctional language till my teenage years, I was still being thought deaf till I was nine and when that was ruled out, the verdict was that I was disturbed, until I was finally diagnosed with autism in my 20s. I don't profess to know how any other functionally non-verbal person thinks, feels or experiences but I can certainly identify strongly with what it is to be unable to assert my sanity and intelligence well into late childhood with doubts still persisting into my teens and I applaude the committment, the humility, the humanity of Doug Biklen (and those of his ilk) for all he has done for the world of functionally non-verbal people, not only championing their rights, providing them opportunities to be heard in their own voices through typed communication, fighting for the equality and validity of typed communication and taking the patient effort to let this wonderful diversity of functionally non-verbal authors unravel and tell their own stories in their own words so wonderfully in this book. These authors demonstrate a diversity of means through which they came to typed communication, a range of relationships to thought and styles of thought and they do so with wit, with anger, with sadness and often forgiveness of an ignorant world that I'm not convinced always deserves that forgiveness. They are the new pioneers in this field, not only people typing, but people who have established themselves creatively as authors and artists in their own right. I can't recommend this book highly enough. I'd have given it 6 stars if I could. ... Donna Williams bestselling author with 9 books in the field of autism.

I rate this as one of the most important books to read if one is studying autism, or is learning about one's child with autism. The author interviews people with autism and we learn again, to respect difference and understand autism as a way of being.