Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone
Engages with the perspectives of people with autism, in their own voices
Autism has been defined by experts as a developmental disorder affecting social and communication skills as well as verbal and nonverbal communication. It is said to occur in as many as 2 to 6 in 1,000 individuals. This book challenges the prevailing, tragic narrative of impairment that so often characterizes discussions about autism.
Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone seriously engages the perspectives of people with autism, including those who have been considered as the most severely disabled within the autism spectrum. The heart of the book consists of chapters by people with autism themselves, either in an interview format with the author or written by themselves. Each author communicates either by typing or by a combination of speech and typing. These chapters are framed by a substantive introduction and conclusion that contextualize the book, the methodology, and the analysis, and situate it within a critical disability studies framework. The volume allows a look into the rich and insightful perspectives of people who have heretofore been thought of as uninterested in the world.
Contributor Bios
Douglas Biklen is Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education, Teaching, and Leadership; and coordinates the Inclusive Education Program at Syracuse University. He is a senior faculty member in the Center on Disability Studies, Law and Human Policy. He is the author of Access to Academics and Contested Words, Contested Science. He was Educational Advisor for the Academy–Award–winning HBO documentary Educating Peter and is coproducer of the CNN documentary Autism is a World. Jamie Burke lives in Syracuse, New York, where he attends high school. He was the subject of a research report published in 2001 and has written and narrated a video documentary, Inside the Edge, about how, as a teenager, he emerged from typing to speaking. Alberto Frugone lives with his mother and stepfather in Zoagli, Italy, on the coast of the Mediterranean. After attending inclusive secondary school, he recently passed Italy’s postsecondary qualifying exams and became the first nonspeaking Italian classified as autistic to attend a university. Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay was born in India and learned to speak and write after much intense support from his mother, from a speech therapist, and from others. By the age of eleven, he had written a book, Beyond the Silence, and was the subject of a BBC documentary.Sue Rubin grew up in southern California and is now a college student. Until the age of thirteen, she was diagnosed as both autistic and severely
retarded and was thought incapable of academic work. She is featured in and was the writer for an autobiographical documentary titled Autism Is
a World on CNN Presents.
Reviews
"The writings of Rubin, Mukhopadhyay, and all of the contributors are testament to the need to embrace a & disability consciousness in seeking educational and therapeutic options for autistic persons so that they can achieve their full potential. While Biklen refrains from extensive analysis of his contributors' words, his book is truly valuable in its straightforward presentation of the voices of autistic persons speaking not only for but as themselves." ~ Disability Studies Quarterly
"Disagrees with the common picture of autism, presenting chapters written by those with autism themselves including those considered most severely disabled within the world of autism to present a personalized view of how autism is experienced by those diagnosed... A must for any who understand the autistic experience." ~ Bookwatch
"Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone is one of those rare professional books that causes one to pause and consider what it tells us about our literature, our field, and, perhaps, ourselves... Biklen has given us a fascinating, thoughtful and, most important, essential book by including insights, experiences, and perspectives of individuals with autism to add to the canon." ~ American Association on Mental Retardation
"Biklens tenacity is to be admired." ~ CHOICE
"The prevailing view of autism and disability is redefined in this beautifully written book. Can you ask for more than to inform, inspire, challenge, and help to create new ways of understanding? Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone forces us to confront misunderstanding, misperceptions, and lack of knowledge, and to rethink disability and autism. It demands that we embrace people who act, communicate, and socialize differently. I love this book!" ~ Jan Nisbet, Institute on Disability
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
(CC BY-NC-SA).