What is autism and Asperger syndrome? What are the core symptoms, and what causes them? How early can autism be recognised and what can be done? Why does autism seem to be more and more common? Are we all a little bit autistic?
This Very Short Introduction offers a clear statement on what is currently known about autism and Asperger syndrome. Looking at symptoms from the full spectrum of autistic disorders, and evaluating current evidence from neuroscience and genetics, this authoritative and accessible book explores the source and nature of social impairment and exceptional talent. Autism: A Very Short Introduction gives a glimpse of life seen through the eyes of autism.
What causes autism? Is it a genetic disorder, or due to some unknown environmental hazard? Are we facing an autism epidemic? What are the main symptoms, and how does it relate to Asperger syndrome? Everyone has heard of autism, but the disorder itself is little understood. It has captured the public imagination through films and novels portraying individuals with baffling combinations of disability and extraordinary talent, and yet the reality is that it often places a heavy burden on sufferers and their families. This Very Short Introduction offers a clear statement on what is currently known about autism and Asperger syndrome. Explaining the vast array of different conditions that hide behind these two labels, and looking at symptoms from the full spectrum of autistic disorders, it explores the possible causes for the apparent rise in autism and also evaluates the links with neuroscience, psychology, brain development, genetics, and environmental causes including MMR and Thimerosal. This VSI also explores the psychology behind social impairment and savantism, and sheds light on what it is like to live inside the mind of the sufferer.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
