Autism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) |  | Author: Uta Frith
Publisher: OUP Oxford
List Price: £7.99
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Rating:  4 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 144
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 0199207569
Dewey Decimal Number: 618.9289
EAN: 9780199207565
Publication Date: October 23, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What causes autism? Is it a genetic disorder, or due to some unknown environmental hazard? Are we facing an epidemic? What are the main symptoms, and how does it relate to Asperger syndrome? This Very Short Introduction answers the key questions and offers a clear statement on what is currently known about autism and Asperger syndrome.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Small but good! April 11, 2010
BlueandGoldGirl (Worcestershire)
This is an excellent pocket sized book. It is very informative, easy to read and very easy to carry around.
 Full of Very Informative and Easy to Understand Explanations! August 20, 2009
edrm
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Quite embarrassingly, I didn't know so much about autism itself before I dealt with this tremendous guide. Although it doesn't have so many pages, I found it very informative and useful. Especially, I'm intrigued by Dr. Frith's explanations on the follows:
1. What neurotypical means
2. Weak central coherence
I wasn't quite sure what the prefix, neuro- means though neurotypical (NT) is one of the key words on autism/Asperger's. Sure thing, I couldn't find the word even in my dictionary. I mean, I could manage to guess it might mean the opposite to people with developmental impairments. However, I didn't quite catch why. I felt like I could clear up my haze when I found out Dr. Frith says neuro- definitely means the brain. "I guessed right! Neurotypical shows the brain works normally or typically." - That's what I exactly thought!
I realized central coherence is crucial for neurodevelopment. People with strong central coherence can see the whole point, while those with weak one tend to dwell on parts. So I suppose some autistic people have such weak central coherence that they tend to be perfectionists, which makes life more stressful. Positively, they seem to know the details pretty well. In my case, I was incredibly good at kanji (Chinese characters) in my childhood. But the trouble was that I was horrible at comprehending the whole sentence. And I suspected that slowed communication skills. The thing is people with weak central coherence find it so hard to catch the whole content they often tend to miss what matters most.
Overall, this autism guide is suitable if you would like to know the difference between NT's and people with autism/Asperger's with regard to neurodevelopmental psychology.
Autism March 3, 2009
A. H. Hay (Nottingham, UK)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Since my son was diagnosed with autism, I have sought to learn all that I could about the disorder. There are many excellent books that provide essential guidance and explanations for parents and carers confronting autism for the first time, such as Chantal Sicile-Kira's Autism Spectrum Disorders The Complete Guide. These books generally enhance one's knowledge without necessarily developing one's understanding and so enabling better empathy with the subject. This book achieves that. Uta Frith builds each aspect through historical notes and clear descriptions of experiments that illustrate clearly the point being put across. The book can become quite absorbing at stages and I could see my son described so clearly and so accurately that that particular section could have been written about him. It has certainly enhanced my understanding of how my son perceives the world and subtly effected how I now communicate with him. I think for the better. I recommend this book to anyone who seeks to better understand how an autistic person perceives the world. Quite superb.
The prospect of understanding January 22, 2009
Jon Chambers (Birmingham, England)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Mysterious, traumatic, intriguing ... autism is all of these things. Uta Frith sheds welcome light upon a phenomenon which keeps getting bigger year on year but which remains elusive and enigmatic. Many of the questions we might want to ask are dealt with as fully as current understanding allows: What is autism? Why does it affect boys disproportionately? Why does it show in the second year of infancy and not the first? What are the classic indicators of autism? etc.
Frith briefly considers the (short) history of autism as a recognised and well-defined condition. She notes that it has core features (minimal social interaction, communication problems and limited interests coupled with repetitive behaviour). An individual's condition might be anything from slight to severe, which is why it is appropriate to talk of an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), along which continuum sits the rather trendy, genius-inducing Asperger's Syndrome, familiar to millions via Rainman and The Curious Incident of the Dog.
The book is forthright. It runs the risk of offending some sensibilities by preferring to be more honest than p.c. Frith uses the frank language of mental 'deficits', behavioural 'impairment' and autism 'sufferers'. Although there are triumphs, she argues, there are more usually difficulties. Although many autistic individuals can achieve acceptance and find happiness, 'this is not the norm': social impairment is. Carers, meanwhile, face anxiety, frustration and upset. Frith is clear that autism amounts to more than just 'differences' in behaviour and mental make-up.
Although this book is bang up to date, at times speculating about some of the most fruitful current research and intriguing theories, it is being written at too early a date for many of the more vexing questions to be resolved, certainly in terms of the 'hard' science of autistic brains and genes. But we sense that if further experiments confirm promising theories, a true understanding may not be that far away.
Like so many others in this VSI series, Autism manages to be concise, profound and accessible - even to the non-specialist.
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