Long story short, Why I Jump is written by a 13 year old autistic boy in Japan that explains why he does what he does, and why the world is as it seems to him. David Mitchell is an author, married to a woman from Japan, and they have a son on the autism spectrum. He wife read the book, started to translate parts of it, and snowballed into a project picked up by his publisher.
Has anyone read this yet?
I saw David Mitchell on the Daily Show today and it was pretty awesome. If you are interested in seeing the interview here is a link to THE DAILY SHOW(jump to the third segment for the start of the guest interview)
Here is a link to the book on Amazon The preview pages of the book I read online are insightful and moving.
BTW, I have a daughter on the autism spectrum and I can’t read most “autism books.” This one I’m going to read I don’t have words yet adequate to write about this, but it is especially moving.
BBC Radio featured this on one of their Book of the Week type shows, where they read five 15-minute excerpts. I listened to that. I have an autistic daughter, though she’s not anywhere near as bad as the author. I thought it provided some interesting insights, though to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot I hadn’t already heard elsewhere.
I actually came here to see if there were anyone who were suspicious about it. The Daily Show interview inspired me to check out the Amazon preview. What he describes of his inner thoughts do not seem to show up in the text of what he writes. He says that he has no continuous memory, yet he’s answering questions in a very continuous fashion, referring back to what he previously said.
I’m not saying it’s a hoax, just wondering how much of it is what he said, and how much of it is being augmented. It just doesn’t make sense that he could learn such amazing grammar and syntax, better than most 13-year-olds, if he’s having as much trouble as he describes. He honestly sounds more like someone trying to sound like a 13-year-old–and someone who is very conversant in the autism literature.
Granted, all of that could be the subtle influence of the translator. And maybe the disparity is mentioned in the book itself. But if I’m even slightly questioning it, I was sure there would be someone here thinking it was a complete hoax.
And, note, I don’t think it’s a hoax. I just wonder if there was a little help in taking what the child said and restructuring it to make more sense. Surely you understand why anyone should be wary of even the slightest hint of facilitation.
I didn’t want to be the first to say it, and I do hope I’m wrong, but yeah, the description and the short bit available through Amazon’s “look inside” view reek to me of facilitated communication. Now, maybe that’s just the result of some editorial cleaning-up as suggested by BigT, but it does make me wary of the whole project.
I don’t know how much may or not be augmented versus edited versus part of the translation team being an accomplished writer and parent of a child on the spectrum. Maybe the book goes into this? I’m new to this and got interested following the Jon Stewart Interview.
For those that are curious, there is also Carly’s Voice. The website goes to lengths to demonstrate that it really is Carly doing the writing. Here’s a link to the original documentary before Carly became well known, and about 3:15 into the video it describes an very low functioning child that unexpected typed “hurts” and “help” as her first communication to the world.
Temple Grandin is a pioneer in trying to explain what it’s like on the spectrum by someone on the spectrum. I saw her speak about 6 months ago. My daughters ABA program manager is also on the spectrum and provides many insights. I don’t have a very good way to describe Temple, but her insights seem very unique to her specifically, from an adult looking back at an age where special needs wasn’t even a word, and she didn’t have the speech challenge of Naoki Higashida.
IMHO, there is a real dividing line for those on the spectrum between having relatively neurotypical speech acquisition (one demarcation of the Asperger’s versus Autism debate), those with no speech, and those with limited speech (like my daughter). One group could communicate more or less like their neurotypical peers, and the other groups always had challenges communicating. What’s interesting to me at least regarding Naoki Higashida and Carly, is that they are those that untypically acquired efficient communication skills much later in life than neurotypically communicating peers.
I agree with this. In fact, one thing I’ve had to learn is just how individual this disease can be. With virtually everything I’ve read about the disease, there are parts that make me say, “Yes! That’s exactly what’s going on with my daughter!” and other parts that leave me baffled and shrugging, because they’re totally foreign to what my daughter does/has/is going through. It’s kind of a trite observation to say that all of these people are different, but at the same time, it was also an important thing to internalize.
I just finished reading this book. I find myself feeling a little suspicious also. It seems a little bit TOO well put together. I would expect some rambling, some non-sequitors, or some non-grammatical constructs. I would expect some situations in which he didn’t really understand the question, but I didn’t see anything like this.
I understand the book was originally “transcribed” by someone in Japanese. Apparently the boy has a lot of trouble talking, and he “typed” it in some form. Then it was translated into English. I wonder how much editing, changing, or “cleaning up” was done in these steps.
I remember hearing Temple Grandin interviewed on the radio. There were several instances where she answered a completely different question than was asked. She is apparently a “high functioning” person on the autism spectrum. Because of his difficulty speaking, I would guess that he is a little bit less high-functioning than Temple. (Of course, I’m not an autism expert, and I could be wrong about this.)
This book just seems a little too perfect, a little too coherent to be the actual words of the boy.
Now, I’m not saying that I definitely think this book is a fraud. I’m just suspicious that someone or someones may have placed too much of themselves in the transciption or translation.
IIRC, it has to do with the sensation of physical movement being soothing and calming to his brain, when things get out of control and he’s lost in his own memories and thoughts.