Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com [image: cover of the book See It Feelingly, by Ralph Savarese] See It Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers, and the Schooling of a No-Good English Professor (Thought in the Act) by Ralph James Savarese Foreword by Stephen Kuusisto Duke University Press Books (October 12, 2018) Reading See it Feelingly took me much longer than I expected, because I wanted to stop to take notes with almost every page turn. Dr. Savarese has produced a masterpiece, simultaneously dense and accessible. His voice moves freely—alternating among lyrical, narrative, and instructive—never losing the flow, never dipping into pedantry, never soaring too far toward the abstract for the reader to follow. Not only is this collection of essays brimming with the most important information and ideas about autism, it is a collaboration of rare beauty. See it Feelingly crosses genres effortlessly. The result is a book rich in the neuroscience of autism,…
Tag: Temple Grandin
Sarah Seymour www.allkidshavespecialneeds.net Two Facebook friends who I am blessed to know (and who happen to be on the autism spectrum) made the following comments: “[Simon] Baron-Cohen says autistics are ‘mind (socially) blind” … but… who is blind?… according to Temple Grandin, neurotypicals are “sensory blind”… seems we are all pretty blind… but at least many of us autists are making great efforts to see outside ourselves… how many of you neuro…typicals can claim to match our efforts????” “I agree. 🙂 See more in the article Q&A: Temple Grandin on Autism & Language on NPR. Autistic people can be isolated, Temple Grandin says, not only because they have difficulty making a connection with so-called “normal” people, but because normal people find it difficult to put themselves in an autistic person’s shoes and see the world from their perspective.” I thought the differences they pointed out were so interesting. Having a…
T.C. www.ihavethings.blogspot.com I vacillate on the autism thing, and how it applies to N. I use it around the school, because it is a strap, a grabbing-on point, a way for people to understand my son and–very much more to the point–to justify putting forth time, effort, and especially money to help him. I use it because doctors and therapists have used it to describe him. I use it because it’s the primary disability listed on his IEP. But there are so many ways in which he doesn’t seem, to me, to fit on the spectrum part of the spectrum. I describe him, often, as the triangular peg who not only doesn’t fit in the round hole, but doesn’t look all that much like the square peg, either. And yet. And yet, professionals of all stripes see him on a regular basis, and talk to me about him with concern…