CCBC-Net Archives
[CCBC-Net] Something else regarding my son and Curious Incident
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Brothers, Deborah <Deborah.Brothers>
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 14:03:17 -0500
I posted a couple days ago about my son (who has Asperger's) reading Haddon's book and his response to Christopher, the protagonist. I wanted to follow up a little, if you'll not mind my being so personal.
My son, Galen, also loves Sherlock Holmes stories, and after reading The Curious Incident decided that his research paper (that was his Freshman year in high school) was going to deal with the fact that the very traits that made Christopher seem "odd" were the ones that served him best as a "detective."
I helped him to search for articles that might frame autism spectrum diagnoses in a more positive light, and we found some. In fact, one of the more interesting, although certainly not academic, was an article about a school on the east coast that, essentially, has students use their autistic traits to their advantage in research, focus, depth of a subject, memory skills, etc.
Anyway, the paper he wrote was incredible--and I don't say this lightly--reading that novel and writing that paper changed Galen's outlook and his life. Interestingly, at about the same time, Dan Akroyd was interviewed on Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" program, and he shared that he, too, had the same diagnosis of Asperger's. Galen is a huge fan of Akroyd's (and almost as good an impersonator as D.A.) and that, too, was positive.
Thanks and best to you all--
Deborah
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 14:03:17 -0500
I posted a couple days ago about my son (who has Asperger's) reading Haddon's book and his response to Christopher, the protagonist. I wanted to follow up a little, if you'll not mind my being so personal.
My son, Galen, also loves Sherlock Holmes stories, and after reading The Curious Incident decided that his research paper (that was his Freshman year in high school) was going to deal with the fact that the very traits that made Christopher seem "odd" were the ones that served him best as a "detective."
I helped him to search for articles that might frame autism spectrum diagnoses in a more positive light, and we found some. In fact, one of the more interesting, although certainly not academic, was an article about a school on the east coast that, essentially, has students use their autistic traits to their advantage in research, focus, depth of a subject, memory skills, etc.
Anyway, the paper he wrote was incredible--and I don't say this lightly--reading that novel and writing that paper changed Galen's outlook and his life. Interestingly, at about the same time, Dan Akroyd was interviewed on Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" program, and he shared that he, too, had the same diagnosis of Asperger's. Galen is a huge fan of Akroyd's (and almost as good an impersonator as D.A.) and that, too, was positive.
Thanks and best to you all--
Deborah
-- Deborah Brothers, Ph.D. Professor of English and Humanities ________________________________Received on Wed 18 Oct 2006 02:03:17 PM CDT
