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Autism and the Edges of the Known World Sensitivities, Language, and Constructed Reality by Bogdashina, Olga ( Author ) ON Jul-15-2010, Paperback
In this intelligent and incisive book, Olga Bogdashina explores old and new theories of sensory perception and communication in autism. Drawing on linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology and quantum mechanics, she looks at how the nature of the senses inform an individual's view of the world, and how language both reflects and constructs that view.
Examining the 'whys' and 'hows' of the senses, and the role of language, Olga Bogdashina challenges common perceptions of what it means to be 'normal' and 'abnormal'. In doing so she shows that autism can help to illuminate our understanding of what it means to be human, and of how we develop faculties that shape our cognition, language, and behaviour. In the final chapter, she explores phenomena often associated with the paranormal - including premonitions, telepathy and déjà vu - and shows that these can largely be explained in natural terms.
This book will appeal to anyone with a personal or professional interest in autism, including students and researchers, clinical practitioners, individuals on the autism spectrum and their families, teachers, speech and occupational therapists, and other professionals.
Examining the 'whys' and 'hows' of the senses, and the role of language, Olga Bogdashina challenges common perceptions of what it means to be 'normal' and 'abnormal'. In doing so she shows that autism can help to illuminate our understanding of what it means to be human, and of how we develop faculties that shape our cognition, language, and behaviour. In the final chapter, she explores phenomena often associated with the paranormal - including premonitions, telepathy and déjà vu - and shows that these can largely be explained in natural terms.
This book will appeal to anyone with a personal or professional interest in autism, including students and researchers, clinical practitioners, individuals on the autism spectrum and their families, teachers, speech and occupational therapists, and other professionals.
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First published June 15, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 29, 2018
As an autistic reader with an interest in Weird Shit, I really wanted to love this book. Instead I DNFed about halfway through.
Bogdashina starts off with a really wonderful, interesting, provocative thesis - that reality is constructed based on what we perceive with our senses and how we cognitively assimilate that information, and that, therefore, non-neurotypical people in some very real sense experience a different reality. If this is true, what does it tell us about epistemology, about communicating across realities, about reality itself?
Unfortunately Bodgashina approaches these questions with some really very poor and ableist scholarship. Here is just one flaw in her work, not the only one, but the one that irritated me most: She mentions early on that she believes in "autisms," not in a single disorder which behaves in a single way. But instead of using this belief to talk about the many diverse realities that different autistic people live in, she instead uses it to focus in on a very specific form of autism (non-verbal, thinking only in direct and undifferentiated sensory forms, hyper- rather than hypo-sensitive and definitely not sensory seeking, etc etc) and ignore all the other forms; or, at best, to make an offhand mention of other forms in a way that assumes they are simply watered-down or partial or limited forms of the form she is talking about. If you hate functioning labels, you will hate this book. She simultaneously romanticizes her chosen form of autism extremely heavily, presenting it not as a different yet equally valid reality, but as some sort of "pure" or "true" disabled-noble-savage state of being uncorrupted by the abstractions of concepts and language.
There are other problems, including a frequent reliance on other questionable scholarly sources, erratic leaps of logic, and a tendency to go on tangents about whatever other thing she has an opinion about which is vaguely related to something else that she mentioned in the chapter.
There is still the seed of a really good idea in here, but I was frustrated and disappointed by the execution and eventually gave up. I will be taking other autism books by this author off of my wishlist.
Bogdashina starts off with a really wonderful, interesting, provocative thesis - that reality is constructed based on what we perceive with our senses and how we cognitively assimilate that information, and that, therefore, non-neurotypical people in some very real sense experience a different reality. If this is true, what does it tell us about epistemology, about communicating across realities, about reality itself?
Unfortunately Bodgashina approaches these questions with some really very poor and ableist scholarship. Here is just one flaw in her work, not the only one, but the one that irritated me most: She mentions early on that she believes in "autisms," not in a single disorder which behaves in a single way. But instead of using this belief to talk about the many diverse realities that different autistic people live in, she instead uses it to focus in on a very specific form of autism (non-verbal, thinking only in direct and undifferentiated sensory forms, hyper- rather than hypo-sensitive and definitely not sensory seeking, etc etc) and ignore all the other forms; or, at best, to make an offhand mention of other forms in a way that assumes they are simply watered-down or partial or limited forms of the form she is talking about. If you hate functioning labels, you will hate this book. She simultaneously romanticizes her chosen form of autism extremely heavily, presenting it not as a different yet equally valid reality, but as some sort of "pure" or "true" disabled-noble-savage state of being uncorrupted by the abstractions of concepts and language.
There are other problems, including a frequent reliance on other questionable scholarly sources, erratic leaps of logic, and a tendency to go on tangents about whatever other thing she has an opinion about which is vaguely related to something else that she mentioned in the chapter.
There is still the seed of a really good idea in here, but I was frustrated and disappointed by the execution and eventually gave up. I will be taking other autism books by this author off of my wishlist.
May 21, 2012
This was an interesting book. Unlike a lot of other autism discourse I've come across, the author focuses primarily on the different ways that people diagnosed with autism may experience the world sensorily. She strongly argues that this perception of the world is as much "reality" as the "normal" perception of the world. I appreciated her argument, and I think that it's one that we need to pay more attention to.
I was somewhat amused by how much of her information about autism and sensory perception she draws from three sources: Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, and Aldous Huxley. Her comparisons between autistic sensory perception and meditation and drug trips were interesting and relatable, but I worry sometimes that we walk a very fine line in these conversations between valuing the life experience and perception of people with autism, and trivializing that same experience as one that is just like ____. Going too far with this allows us to use "autistic" as just another sensory metaphor, such as "deaf" and "blind," that may actually have the effect of making it more difficult for us to remember that autism is not the same thing as neurotypical perceptions of autism.
I read this entire book in one sitting, and it took me about an hour. So I say go for it if you're interested in sensory perception and have a comfy chair at a coffeeshop.
I was somewhat amused by how much of her information about autism and sensory perception she draws from three sources: Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, and Aldous Huxley. Her comparisons between autistic sensory perception and meditation and drug trips were interesting and relatable, but I worry sometimes that we walk a very fine line in these conversations between valuing the life experience and perception of people with autism, and trivializing that same experience as one that is just like ____. Going too far with this allows us to use "autistic" as just another sensory metaphor, such as "deaf" and "blind," that may actually have the effect of making it more difficult for us to remember that autism is not the same thing as neurotypical perceptions of autism.
I read this entire book in one sitting, and it took me about an hour. So I say go for it if you're interested in sensory perception and have a comfy chair at a coffeeshop.
October 25, 2014
The question of an autism-neurotypical spectrum is one that’s still wide open — along with the whole area of neurodiversity. If the autism spectrum spans from Albert Einstein to severely disabled individuals, that’s a much wider variation than found in so-called “neurotypical” humans. If the autism spectrum includes neurotypicals, where do they fit on the scale? If not, are there two or more types of human being mistakenly grouped into a single species?
Neurodiversity is a spectrum. That means that, at one end, there is one kind of human nature (infrared), and at the other end another kind (ultraviolet). Since neurodiversity is a spectrum, there may be as many different kinds of it as there are individuals.
The most common, or at least well-known, form of neurodiversity is autism. Autism is often thought of by the uninformed as a mental disability similar to Down syndrome. In fact, autism is a physiological difference that can be traced in infant brains, and its diagnosis relates not to intelligence or mental ability but most of all to behavior. Autists perceive their world in a fundamentally different manner to normal people, or “neurotypicals.” That’s what neurodiversity is. Since as a phenomenon, until recently at least, neurodiversity has been studied and mapped almost exclusively by neurotypicals, it’s wise to assume that much of what we’ve heard about it is wrong.
This book does a lot to correct that error. It combines scientific research with firsthand testimonials and more philosophical speculations and is written with both academic rigor and literary grace - it's succinct, eloquent, to the point, and both compelling and persuasive. Required reading for anyone interested in reaching a better understanding of the enigma of autism.
Neurodiversity is a spectrum. That means that, at one end, there is one kind of human nature (infrared), and at the other end another kind (ultraviolet). Since neurodiversity is a spectrum, there may be as many different kinds of it as there are individuals.
The most common, or at least well-known, form of neurodiversity is autism. Autism is often thought of by the uninformed as a mental disability similar to Down syndrome. In fact, autism is a physiological difference that can be traced in infant brains, and its diagnosis relates not to intelligence or mental ability but most of all to behavior. Autists perceive their world in a fundamentally different manner to normal people, or “neurotypicals.” That’s what neurodiversity is. Since as a phenomenon, until recently at least, neurodiversity has been studied and mapped almost exclusively by neurotypicals, it’s wise to assume that much of what we’ve heard about it is wrong.
This book does a lot to correct that error. It combines scientific research with firsthand testimonials and more philosophical speculations and is written with both academic rigor and literary grace - it's succinct, eloquent, to the point, and both compelling and persuasive. Required reading for anyone interested in reaching a better understanding of the enigma of autism.
November 29, 2013
What a brilliant book. Many many faceted. You will look at the way you relate to the world again and question your most basic assumptions after you have read this. Very very clever insightful broad minded book and author I suppose. Subjectively concerned with autism but through this examines the way all of us view and perceive the world and frame it with our own particular language be it verbal or otherwise.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews