An Anthropologist on Mars Book

This book contains an extended, very sympathetic case-study of Temple Grandin, the world's most famous autistic person. I read it when my older son, Jonathan, was diagnosed autistic at age about 10. Obviously, given that it took so long to figure out why he was odd, he isn't that much like Grandin, but the book did give me some important insights.

If you're autistic, your fundamental problem is that you don't naturally understand how other people think and feel. Many women summarize this as "you're like a man, but more so". If you're strongly autistic, you have so little ability to relate to other people that you don't even pick up language skills. People who are mildly autistic learn to speak, but they almost always talk in a more or less unusual way. Their prosody is odd (they speak with flat or unnatural intonation), and they haven't picked up all of the subtle rules that govern correct use of language. As a linguist, I can pinpoint some of the things Jonathan does. For instance, he forms certain WH-questions that aren't permitted in standard English. He'll say, of someone he likes, "What do you think I'm doing to Sarah?", to which the intended answer is "I'm missing her". Try explaining just why this is wrong! More seriously, he has trouble understanding why things are not permitted by the rules of social interaction, which can get him into trouble.

What's fascinating about Temple Grandin is that she's shown how an autistic person can to a large extent overcome their problems, consciously learning behaviors which most people acquire without ever even knowing they are doing it. She's become a well-known advocate for autistic people, and argues convincingly that they often have compensating skills which "normal" people lack. I agree with her; I know a lot of mathematicians, and, once you are familiar with the literature on autism, it's obvious that it's not uncommon in the world of mathematics. You see that the ability to shut out the world and focus intensely on an abstract problem can be a huge strength.

Jonathan, who's now 23, has an incredibly retentive memory. He can give you minute descriptions of things that happened to him when he was three or four years old. But he hasn't figured out how to get his act together and use his abilities systematically, and it's not clear he ever will.