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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.85882
EAN num: 9781582346205
ISBN number: 1582346208
Label: Bloomsbury USA
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: April 03, 2007
Publishing house: Bloomsbury USA
Release Date: April 03, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 154197
Studio: Bloomsbury USA
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Product Description:
In 1982, when he was four years old, Kamran Nazeer was enrolled in a special school alongside a dozen other children diagnosed with autism. Calling themselves the Idiots, these kids received care that was at the cutting edge of developmental psychology. Now a policy adviser in England, Kamran decides to visit four of his old classmates to find out the kind of lives that they are living now, how much they’ve been able to overcome—and what remains missing.
Bringing to life the texture of autistic lives and the limitations that the condition presents, Nazeer also relates the ways in which those can be eased over time, and with the right treatment.Using his own experiences to examine such topics as the difficulties of language, conversation as performance, and the politics of civility, Send in the Idiots is also a rare and provocative exploration of the way that people—all people—learn to think and feel. Written with unmatched insight and striking personal testimony, Kamran Nazeer’s account is a stunning, invaluable, and utterly unique contribution to the literature of what makes us human.
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Rated by buyers 
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I really loved this book. It starts out good, and just gets better. Nazeer is a talented writer, and this is a polished work on a wide variety of fascinating topics. These topics include not only autism itself, but range from the nature of political discourse and its impact on the functioning of a healthy democracy all the way to the extent to which our tend to categorize many abilities as innate and in doing so deny the hard work that is always required to develop those abilities.
It's rare to find a book that is this easy and absorbing to read, and yet where you so often find your thinking shifting subtly over and over as you absorb the ideas presented. I highly recommend it.
Rated by buyers -
Nazeer says, "Autistic individuals find it difficult to develop intuition or empathy," and convincingly demonstrates that his experience of social interactions and certain kinds of frustration is very different from, well, my own anyway.
But, his writing is brilliant, his metaphors are fresh and apt, he's engaging...this is one of those books that's worth reading just for the writing. But in this case that gives my prejudices a puzzle: If that's not intuition and empathy, what is it? A hard-won kind, perhaps, and in many ways better than the kind I take for granted. But that upsets my ideas of what good writing comes from.
And in fact one of his chapters is about the common assumption that geniuses have it easy. The unthinking dismissal implied by saying that, he's gifted, he's smart, he's obsessed with the subject. Nazeer points out that there's still a hell of a lot of work in preparing for and executing any kind of great work. Still, looking back at Nazeer's own book, I wonder, can you create that kind of style, color, coherence and personality by... work?
In one chapter he rants against a kind of falseness common in conversations. Although I'm tempted to correct his calling it falseness, the point isn't easy to make. Often conversations float above factualness and their substance is about themes, patterns, meta concerns and a kind of shared tacit evolving conspiracy, but I'm left with the uneasy feeling that that sense of substance is "just an intuition," as if I understand it even less than Nazeer does.
Which is to say, I loved these bonus insights and paradoxes, especially when the ride to them was so comfortable and entertaining. I appreciated being allowed into the lives of these people, especially the author.
Rated by buyers -
My son has a diagnosis on the autism spectrum and my bookshelf is overflowing with books about autism. Unlike another reviewer I did not find this book discouraging.
This book gave me a wonderful insight into how it is for my son to learn the mechanics of communication that come intuatively to neurotypical people. And many times the mechanics are much more interesting to the author than the content of the conversation. For example he was told that his teacher had been assaulted by a parent. I was waiting for him to ask and share why this assault took place and what had happend to the parent and child but instead he went on about the conversation itself. I had to laugh because clearly very different aspects of that story were interesting to us and I appreciated that as an insight.
This book reminded me of books I have read by people traveling back to their home to find their roots to explain who they are. What does it mean for him and his old classmates to have autism? What has it ment to their lives? Autism has put odds in their way but has also forced them to become deliberate and resourceful.
So I guess if you are looking for a book that makes you see people with autism as overcoming all obstacles or being doomed or savants then this might not be your book. It is not a book offering knowledge on how to raise your autistic child. It is a book about a few people with autism who struggle and succed and fail much in the same and jet a different way as all of humanity.
Rated by buyers -
Autism is a world like no other. My child was diagnosed at the age of 19 months and we have been living in that world for 3 1/2 years. I felt this book was a very interesting and insightful view to the 'inside' of Autism. I have spent these years trying (and succeeding) at understanding my own child's mind. When I could not find materials to help educate her, I made them myself. I proactively worked at educating my child. I have a website [...] where I have made available items that have successfully helped my child and other children with Autism.
Understanding your child's mind is a wonderful tool for helping them. This was a good book to read and fast-reading book. I also gave me hope for my own child's quirky ways.
Rated by buyers 
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This book held a lot of promise for me. As the mother of a 7 year old son with autism, I was hoping to read about how these children started on the path of intervention and therapy at a young age, and had terrific outcomes. What I got was instead rather depressing. First, it is not an easy book to read. The author seems to get mired in side information, such as the use of the word "genius" for far too long, distracting from the stories of the lives of the characters.
While I know my son will live with autism for his whole life, we always hold out hope that some of the behaviors that manifest in his place on the spectrum will be outgrown. That did not seem to be the case for some of the people in this book. I was very disturbed at Andre and his use of puppets as an adult. I fully understand that as an autisic person, he needs to use whatever strategies he can to cope, and I have no judgement on him. I can only keep working with my own child to try to lead him out of these behaviors.
I would not recommend this book to parents of young autistic children. I think it has the ability to dash some of the hope we need to have.
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