Autism Spectrum

Shahil Patel        

5/31/2016

Block C

        Autism Spectrum is a complex disorder in the Brain Development. Adolescents with this disorder tend to have many difficulties in general areas of life. The most common areas of struggle include: Social skills, speech and language difficulties, and restricted behavior and play. What this means is that children with Autism Spectrum have difficulty in being social with their peers. For example, In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, the main character Christopher Boone struggles in life with Autism Spectrum disorder.

        In the novel there are many characteristics of Autism Spectrum that are seen in Christopher. Some of those characteristics are that he gets frustrated when he is asked way too many questions. In addition, he cannot handle too much noise and so he covers his ears. The last one is that he does not talk to anyone unless he gets to know the person well because he thinks that person might do something horrible to him, which is one the difficulties he has with social skills. He tries to hide his disabilities so he can be a “typical teenager.”

        Christopher tries a lot in the novel to act like a typical teenager. Christopher tries his best to become as independent as possible, which many teenagers try to do, as they get older, but because of his condition, Christopher cannot be as independent as he would like to be. However, Christopher still has the typical teenage desire to do what he wants and take care of himself without anyone else telling him what to do. As a result of wanting to be independent, Christopher lies and disobeys his father’s orders. His desire for independence is seen in one of his dreams where he is one of the few people left on Earth, in which there is no one else present, and in his planning for college, where he wants to live by himself. Christopher tries a lot to become independent, but he doesn’t succeed; yet he keeps trying.

        Christopher shows throughout the novel that he has a positive identity. For example he says, “My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. (3.1) This is how Christopher introduces himself, and the way he says this is almost as if the things he knows are as important as his name. Another example is when he says, “Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them. (19.7) Here Christopher thinks that prime umbers are like life but there like Christopher unique, indivisible, and unpredictable. Christopher’s positive identity makes him a person that will help himself succeed in life.