Overview
At the age of two, in 1960, Jessy Park was remote, withdrawn, unable to walk or talk, yet oddly content within the invisible walls that surrounded her. Doctors were baffled. The study of autism was still in its infancy. Jessy's family stepped in. ""Confronted with a tiny child's refusal of life, all existential hesitations evaporate. We had no choice. We would use every stratagem we could invent to assail her fortress, to beguile, entice, seduce her into the human condition"". This book charts a surprising journey of discovery as it records the challenges and rewards of the first eight years of Jessy's life.
Full Product Details
Author: Clara Claiborne Park
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Imprint: Little, Brown and Company
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 14.20cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 21.10cm
Weight: 0.440kg
ISBN: 9780316690690
ISBN 10: 0316690694
Pages: 330
Publication Date: 30 June 1982
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Very little is really known or has been written about the autistic child - that most undisturbed of disturbed children who lives hermetically sealed off from the world in a state of unresponsive isolation. (In the popular literature, Karin Junker's The Child in the Glass Ball-Abingdon-1964 - an unextended personal experience; in the clinical field, a new book by Bruno Bettelheim). Towards the end of this book which deals with Mrs. Park's first years with Elly, her fourth child, she makes the point that parents need as much help as children such as this which is certainly the intention and achievement of this book, based on a very detailed record of Elly's development, from the uncertain diagnosis of a relatively unfamiliar condition at 22 months. Untouched by human experience, totally acceptant, serene and self-sufficient, Elly would have remained just that way unless Mrs. Park had not attempted to expand her world and make her relate, which to some extent she has by now succeeded in doing. It's a very interesting record thereof as well as of what professional help she could secure (psychiatrists here; Anna Freud's clinic in England; special schools); it also does show the prevalent patterns in this condition (from the refrigerator parents - intellectually superior, reserved, detached, to the various ways in which these children can be reached) which are important. Also, that love is not enough. But books like this will illumine and instruct. (Kirkus Reviews)
Author Information
Clara Claiborne Park is the author of several books. She has recently retired from the English Department of Williams College, and is a prominent speaker about autism. Her account of her daughter's life with autism continues with EXITING NIRVANA.
