i just finished Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time this past week :) it was certainly an enjoyable and refreshing read. i also liked how the author managed to weave in the bit about how difficult it can be for parents to take care of an autistic child. how much patience and love it takes... and it did remind me of some of the things the staff used to tell us at CHAI.... i'm newly inspired to read up more on Autism for fun. one thing that bothers me a lot is how autistic people don't really naturally acquire social skills... like they find it extremely hard to interpret social behavior/cues... even perfectly able human beings find it difficult to figure out what others are thinking sometimes, so i can imagine how frustrating it must be for them! :(
nonetheless, some parts are really quite innocently funny. like...

29. I find people confusing.
This is for two main reasons.
The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eye-brow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean "I want to do sex with you" and it can also mean "I think that what you just said was very stupid."

Siobhan also says that if you close your mouth and breathe out loudly through your nose, it can mean that you are relaxed, or that you are bored, or that you are angry, and it all depends on how much air comes out of your nose and how fast and what shape your mouth is when you do it and how you are sitting and what you said just before and hundreds of other things which are too complicated to work out in a few seconds......

anyway, me thinks that it makes for some good light reading for ppl who want to gain some insight into an autistic mind :)

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