Reflection paper on the House Rules - Book Report/Review Example

First of all as a typical AS Jacob has a driving fascination towards a single interest- forensic science. In fact Jacob takes this obsession to another level by following all the information that he can get on this particular subject and also appearing at the scenes of crimes and advising the investigating officers on the correct course of action. He even puts up fake crime scenes for his family to solve and gets irritated if they follow an illogical path of direction. Typically the AS people are very poor at reading social symbols.

For example, when in seventh grade, Jacob was once approached by a girl who asked him to share her slushie; Jacob does not understand the obvious romantic hint and instead responds, “: Sharing drinks can give me mono. So can kissing.” Hence, he is a failure at social communication. Thirdly, Jacob has trouble making eye contact with people. He also has constant tics and twitches. Hence, when the investigating officer confronts him with the death of his social skills teacher, these obvious AS syndromes are recognized as ideal symptoms of a guilty conscious person.

The officer who was ignorant of the Asperger Syndrome takes the tics and twitches and the inability to make eye contact as a sign of guilt and Jacob is thus, seen as the accused in the case. As an AS kid, Jacob is much dependent on orders and schedules. Any disruption of order makes him confused and shatters his calm. Hence, his mother has made certain house rules to make his life easier. Typically, Jacob is the first person who uses shower each day. He also religiously follows a television show, Crimebusters which is regularly telecasted at 4.30P.M.

Similarly, everything in his life is perfectly organized and he unfailingly follows these routines. If any of these schedules are disrupted then he feels bewildered and start showing his confusion in an unhealthy manner which can appear as a childish tantrum to an outsider. Another characteristic of Asperger’s Syndrome is that the person interprets the language at face value and is often unable to pick out the hidden sarcasm, irony or metaphor. Jacob too is a total failure at understanding these subtleties of languages as a result he had to face many problems in life.

At one instance, his teacher had to go out of the class for a short duration and she asks the whole class not to move or take a breath until she came back. Jacob dutifully followed this instruction and held his breath till he nearly fainted out. The protagonist is also endowed with the typical speech pattern of an AS and is described as monotonic or robotic. Thus, Jacob is often seen talking on his pet subject that of forensic, little realizing that the listener may be feeling bored or disinterested.

And lastly, Jacob is attributed with physical clumsiness that characterizes his AS personality. An Asperger Syndrome block a child’s natural right to live a normal life. But, the syndrome is not the isolated culprit, the treatment of different people who interact with these AS kids also work a long way towards making the life easy or difficult for the sufferer. Let us now look into the perspective of each of the people who were associated with the protagonist, Jacob Hunt. a. Emma Emma is a very devoted mother to her AS son Jacob Hunt and is desperate to make his behave as normal.

In her desperation and devotion, she completely