The best account that I have ever read of what it is it is like to have autism is a novel titled, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. A recent issue of the Schafer Report (Friday, January 12, 2007) describes a ten-year old child with autism who writes mysteries, which include people he knows in as various characters such as villain (the principal).
The mystery story has a long history in neurology. As I mention in the preface in my case history eBook, Little Bubba's Not Ready for Nashville, Yet, the most famous detective in fiction, Sherlock Holmes, was based on one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical school professors at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh where he was a student in the late 1800s. Apparently, like Holmes, neurologist Joseph Bell mystified Doyle and his fellow students with his gift for clinical diagnosis. As I do research into the causes of autism and work with children with autism in my clinic and try to unravel the mystery of autism I often wonder what Holmes would do.
