Clara Park - Exiting Nirvana

For one of these drawings of number people, see The Siege, 1982 or 2001 edition.

Uta Frith, Autism: Explaining the Enigma (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 12; Frith, in Autism and Asperger Syndrome, p. 17.

„Lewis and Boucher (1988) have shown that autistic children’s pretense is unimpaired relative to controls when the play is ‘instructed, ’ that is, when the children are told what to pretend“. Gregory Currie, „Simulation-Theory, Theory-Theory, and Evidence from Autism“, in Theories of Theories of Mind, P. Carruthers and P. K. Smith, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 251.

Wing, op. cit., p. 109.

Stephen Wiltshire, Floating Cities; foreword by Oliver Sacks (New York: Summit Books, 1991).

Ernest C. Pascucci, exhibition catalog for „A World of a Different Color — The Paintings of Jessica Park“, The Bookcellar Cafe, Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 29-May 1, 1992 (unpublished).

Christopher Gillberg, „Clinical and Neurological Aspects of Asperger Syndrome in Six Family Studies“, in Frith, ed., Autism and Asperger Syndrome, p. 132.

Courchesne et al., op. cit., p. 120.

For more, see D. Park, „Operant Conditioning of a Speaking Autistic Child“, Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia, vol. 4, no. 2 (1974), PP- 189–191.

Hypersensitivities, of course, are characteristic of autism. But these tend to be straightforwardly physical — intolerance of certain sounds, for instance, or textures. Jessy is reasonably comfortable in the physical world; she seems indifferent to extremes of heat or cold, for all her interest in the Weather Channel. Her sensitivities are not of the body but of the mind.

J. R. Cautela and J. Groden, Relaxation: A Comprehensive Manual for Adults, Children, and Children with Special Needs (Champaign, 111.: Research Press, 1978).

Reproduced in The Siege, 1982 and 2001 editions.

C. C. Park, „Growing Out of Autism“, in Autism in Adolescents and Adults, E. Schopler and G. B. Mesibov, eds. (New York: Plenum, 1983), p. 294.

The whole episode can be seen in „Rage for Order“, the hour-long section on autism from the BBC’s series on Dr. Oliver Sacks, The Mind Traveller, shown in 1996 on PBS (Rosetta Pictures for the British Broadcasting Company, directed by Christopher Rawlence).