Constructing Autism

Constructing Autism PDF Author: Majia Holmer Nadesan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113435584X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book

Book Description
Autism is now considered to be one of the most common developmental disorders today, yet 100 years ago the term did not exist. This book examines the historical and social events that enabled autism to be identified as a distinct disorder in the early twentieth century. The author, herself the mother of an autistic child, argues that although there is without doubt a biogenetic component to the condition, it is the social factors involved in its identification, interpretation and remediation that determine what it means to be autistic. Constructing Autism explores the social practices and institutions that reflect and shape the way we think about autism and what effects this has on autistic people and their families. Unravelling what appears to be the ‘truth’ about autism, this informative book steps behind the history of its emergence as a modern disorder to see how it has become a crisis of twenty-first century child development.

Constructing Autism

Constructing Autism PDF Author: Majia Holmer Nadesan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113435584X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book

Book Description
Autism is now considered to be one of the most common developmental disorders today, yet 100 years ago the term did not exist. This book examines the historical and social events that enabled autism to be identified as a distinct disorder in the early twentieth century. The author, herself the mother of an autistic child, argues that although there is without doubt a biogenetic component to the condition, it is the social factors involved in its identification, interpretation and remediation that determine what it means to be autistic. Constructing Autism explores the social practices and institutions that reflect and shape the way we think about autism and what effects this has on autistic people and their families. Unravelling what appears to be the ‘truth’ about autism, this informative book steps behind the history of its emergence as a modern disorder to see how it has become a crisis of twenty-first century child development.

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism PDF Author: Kinga Morsanyi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351060899
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
Thinking and Reasoning in Autism provides fresh insights into the cognitive processes that underlie some of the typical characteristics of autism. Autism has long been considered an enigma, and no single theory so far has been able to explain, or even fully describe, the key characteristics of the autistic mind. From the interdisciplinary perspective of new research in cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience, this book explores thinking, reasoning and decision making in autism. The new cognitive approaches challenge some of the existing assumptions of the nature of thought in autism, including presumed areas of impairments. Instead, this book focuses on the nuanced array of cognitive signatures that characterize the autistic mind, and in many cases it reveals the possibility of intact performance alongside instances of remarkably enhanced thinking. The book considers the implications of these characteristics, providing in-depth analyses of specific areas of cognitive functioning, and their everyday manifestations. Featuring contributions from world-leading researchers from the fields of cognitive science and autism research, this volume will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers, as well as those working with individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Autism and the Edges of the Known World

Autism and the Edges of the Known World PDF Author: Olga Bogdashina
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 0857002392
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book

Book Description
In this intelligent and incisive book, Olga Bogdashina explores old and new theories of sensory perception and communication in autism. Drawing on linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology and quantum mechanics, she looks at how the nature of the senses inform an individual's view of the world, and how language both reflects and constructs that view. Examining the 'whys' and 'hows' of the senses, and the role of language, Olga Bogdashina challenges common perceptions of what it means to be 'normal' and 'abnormal'. In doing so she shows that autism can help to illuminate our understanding of what it means to be human, and of how we develop faculties that shape our cognition, language, and behaviour. In the final chapter, she explores phenomena often associated with the paranormal - including premonitions, telepathy and déjà vu - and shows that these can largely be explained in natural terms. This book will appeal to anyone with a personal or professional interest in autism, including students and researchers, clinical practitioners, individuals on the autism spectrum and their families, teachers, speech and occupational therapists, and other professionals.

Unstrange Minds

Unstrange Minds PDF Author: Roy Richard Grinker
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786721928
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book

Book Description
When anthropologist Richard Grinker's daughter was diagnosed with autism in 1994, it occurred in only about 1 in every 10,000 children. Within ten years, rates had skyrocketed, and the media was declaring autism an epidemic. Unstrange Minds documents Grinker's quest across the globe to discover the surprising truth about why autism is so much more common today. Grinker shows that the identification and treatment of autism depends on culture just as much as on science. Filled with moving stories and informed by the latest science, Unstrange Minds is a powerful testament to a father's quest for the truth.

Exceptionally Good Friends

Exceptionally Good Friends PDF Author: Melissa Burkhardt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780988470712
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book

Book Description
This book is a wealth of information on autism. It is a children's book that lists resources and provides information about autism for adults. Reading this book helps both children and adults to build empathy and understanding. This book is unique in that it is actually two books in one. Turn the book around for the second cover and story. The first story is told from the perspective of a child with autism and the second story is told from the perspective of a typical girl about her relationship with her friend with autism

Perfectly Autistic

Perfectly Autistic PDF Author: Emma Kendall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781081534097
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book

Book Description
"Knowing that your child is autistic is one thing, trying to understand what that diagnosis means for your child is an entirely different matter." (Emma Kendall) Emma Kendall is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (Asperger's Syndrome) and comes from a family with many ASD diagnosed members, including her son. She also holds a first class degree in Autism: Special Education. Emma has written from both a personal and educational perspective. She provides simple to understand guidance, and examples of personal experiences that provide an insight into the complexities of what it means to support and parent an autistic child. Her friendly guidance and support will help you to connect and bond with your child. Offering inspiring thoughts on how to identify your child's needs and how to help your child to understand what it actually means to be autistic. Featuring: Helping your child understand their diagnosis. Helping your child explain to others that they are autistic. Teaching your child how to advocate their needs. Recognising stressors and triggers. Calming and coping strategies. Autistic behaviours. Connecting with your child on am emotional level. And much, much more...

Autism in a Decentered World

Autism in a Decentered World PDF Author: Alice Wexler
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317594320
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book

Book Description
Autistic people are empirically and scientifically generalized as living in a fragmented, alternate reality, without a coherent continuous self. In Part I, this book presents recent neuropsychological research and its implications for existing theories of autism, selfhood, and identity, challenging common assumptions about the formation and structure of the autistic self and autism’s relationship to neurotypicality. Through several case studies in Part II, the book explores the ways in which artists diagnosed with autism have constructed their identities through participation within art communities and cultures, and how the concept of self as ‘story’ can be utilized to better understand the neurological differences between autism and typical cognition. This book will be of particular interest to researchers and scholars within the fields of Disability Studies, Art Education, and Art Therapy.

The Social, Cultural, and Political Discourses of Autism

The Social, Cultural, and Political Discourses of Autism PDF Author: Jessica Nina Lester
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9402421343
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book

Book Description
Taking up a social constructionist position, this book illustrates the social and cultural construction of autism as made visible in everyday, educational, institutional and historical discourses, alongside a careful consideration of the bodily and material realities of embodied differences. The authors highlight the economic consequences of a disabling culture, and explore how autism fits within broader arguments related to normality, abnormality and stigma. To do this, they provide a theoretically and historically grounded discussion of autism—one designed to layer and complicate the discussions that surround autism and disability in schools, health clinics, and society writ large. In addition, they locate this discussion across two contexts – the US and the UK – and draw upon empirical examples to illustrate the key points. Located at the intersection of critical disability studies and discourse studies, the book offers a critical reframing of autism and childhood mental health disorders more generally.

Representing Autism

Representing Autism PDF Author: Stuart Murray
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1846310911
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book

Book Description
From concerns about an ‘autism epidemic’ to the MMR vaccine crisis, autism is a source of peculiar fascination in the contemporary media. Author Stuart Murray, himself the parent of an autistic child, contends that for all the coverage, autism rarely emerges from the various images we produce of it as a comprehensible way of being in the world—instead occupying a succession of narrative spaces as a source of fascination and wonder. A refreshing analysis and evaluation of autism within contemporary society and culture, Representing Autism establishes the autistic presence as a way by which we might more fully articulate our understanding of those with the condition, and what it means to be a human. “This is an outstanding volume of empathetic scholarship. . . . Representing Autism is a truly significant piece of cultural criticism about one of the defining conditions of our time.”—Mark Osteen, Loyola College

Autism and Representation

Autism and Representation PDF Author: Mark Osteen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135911495
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book

Book Description
Autism, a neuro-developmental disability, has received wide but often sensationalistic treatment in the popular media. A great deal of clinical and medical research has been devoted to autism, but the traditional humanities disciplines and the new field of Disability Studies have yet to explore it. This volume, the first scholarly book on autism in the humanities, brings scholars from several disciplines together with adults on the autism spectrum to investigate the diverse ways that autism has been represented in novels, poems, autobiographies, films, and clinical discourses, and to explore the connections and demarcations between autistic and "neurotypical" creativity. Using an empathetic scholarship that unites professional rigor with experiential knowledge derived from the contributors’ lives with or as autistic people, the essays address such questions as: In what novel forms does autistic creativity appear, and what unusual strengths does it possess? How do autistic representations--whether by or about autistic people--revise conventional ideas of cognition, creativity, language, (dis)ability and sociability? This timely and important collection breaks new ground in literary and film criticism, aesthetics, psychology, and Disability Studies.