Essay on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Words: 996
Pages: 4

“When I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is even harder because people are not like cows and flowers and grass and they can talk to you and do things that you don’t expect, so you have to notice everything that is in the place, and also you have to notice things that might happen as well.” Those are the words of Christopher, from Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, explaining himself to why he acts and does not act a certain way. But with just that one quote, Christopher reveals his key abilities and disabilities, both physical and mental, of a detective. But even while having these disabilities, because of his Asperger’s syndrome, that may or may not hold him back as a detective, one …show more content…
His powers of observation, moreover, rely on on precise spatial memories: they are associative, indexical, and made far more difficult by social interaction.” With this statement, James makes it clear that Christopher has amazing skills to be a great detective, and even though having disabilities and weakness, which may affect him on the job, his powerful mind can still overcome.
So, after all this talk of Christopher, and how his mental disability affects him in a good and negative way, what is Asperger’s syndrome, which is really an Autism spectrum disorder, so what is Autism? “Autism is a general term used to describe a group of complex developmental brain disorders known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). The other pervasive developmental disorders are PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified), Asperger's Syndrome, Rett Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. Many parents and professionals refer to this group as Autism Spectrum Disorders.” So basically, Autism (Asperger’s Syndrome), is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported. Clearly, Christopher had a