George and Sam -

Charlotte Moore

Penguin Books

2004

252 páginas

8h 24m

ISBN-9: 06709141X

For two years Charlotte Moor wrote her highly acclaimed Mind the Gap column in the Guardian, which described in a groundbreaking way daily life with her two autistic sons, George and Sam, and their non-autistic younger brother, Jake. In George and Sam she tells the full story of the three children: their births, theirs babyhoods, the gradual realization of the two older boys condition, the slow path to formal diagnosis, and the continuing impact on the family.
George had been precocious baby: walking at nine months, knowing several words by his first birthday and able to sing a number of carols word-perfectly by his second. Yet he was difficult too: hardly sleeping, a bundle of nervous energy. Sam was completely different, a placid "easy" baby. T wo very different boys. Yet by the age of four and half both had been diagnosed with autism. At the time it hardly seemed possible that austism could occur twice in one family - though statistics now suggest that this is not such a rare thing.
A great deal of scientific reserach is currently being done on austism, and Charlotte Moore describes what scientists now know about this most mysterious of conditions. She also writes intriguingly of her private theories based on her ownexperiences and instincts. She is conviced that George and Sam were prenatally autistic, not afllicted by some catastrophe in their childhood, and that there can be no cure. At the same time she discusses the power of some interventionist techniques to improve the quality of life for both the child and its parents. " I've tried a lot of them...The only therapy left on my wish list is swimming with dolphins, and that's only because it sounds like fun"
But George and Sam is rather more than a dispassionate account of a medical condition and its treatments. In describing the boy's attitudes to food, their ways with language,, their TV and video interests, their seeming lack of fear when faced with physical danger, among many other topics, she provides a vivid insight into autism and how it is experienced within a family. It's an invaluable book for anyone who has interest in childhood.