Content area
Full text
Autism: Explaining the enigma By Uta Frith Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Pp 249. 2nd edn. Hardback, L50, Paperback, L15.99. ISBN 0 63122 900 0 (hardback); 0 63122 909 1 (paperback)
Uta Frith is a professor of Cognitive Development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London. As stated in the preface, the book 'tells the story of a scientific endeavour to understand autism'. It focuses on cognitive theories and their neurological basis.
The opening chapter describes autism and its diagnosis. This starts with the original descriptions of Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger and concludes with the diagnostic criteria used today. The second and third chapters present legendary and historical stories of autism which explore the similarities between cases described in the late 18th and early 19th century and autism as we know it today. Chapter 4...