Asperger Syndrome - Book Report/Review Example

Identify and discuss at least 6 different scenerios that exemplify and relate to various characteristics of a person with Asperger syndrome. According to Mayo Clinic, Asperger Syndrome is a development disorder that affects a person’s ability to socialize and communicate effectively with each other. The affected person shows a social awkwardness and an obsession with a particular subject. The story, House Rules delves deep into the Asperger syndrome and attributes much of its symptoms on its protagonist Jacob Hunt. In fact the story seems less of a murder thriller and more of an encyclopedia on Asperger, since Jacob shows almost all the characteristics of a typical AS kid. 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 neglects her normal son, Theo. Emma has done extensive study in the field of Asperger Syndrome and believes that it was due to a bad case of childhood vaccination that triggered this disease in her son. According to her Jacob was an empathic and normal child before the vaccinations. Emma has developed many house rules to make Jacob’s life more organized. She has put him in therapy classes and humors all his wishes, putting his needs (both economical and emotional) before anyone else’ in the family. Emma has also formulated a strict diet plan for her son from which she has eliminated casein and gluten and substituted them with extra vitamins, believing that this diet plan has brought the desired improvement in her son’s condition. b. Theo Theo as the younger brother of Jacob is a very miserable person. He feels cheated of his share of love and affection that his mother bestows only on her first born. Jacob is given all the costly therapies and other benefits to normalize his life. But, Theo is always deprived of any goodly benefit because there is always a scarcity of money at home. As a single parent, Emma is unable to earn a huge salary and whatever she earns go a long way towards fulfilling Jacob’s needs. Hence, Theo is always left out both of his mother’s share of love and also his own share of worldly happiness. Therefore, at one instance he regrets to be born second and says “Why God couldn’t have asked him first?” Theo calls his brother “a total nutcase”, but is also obviously jealous of him. To overcome his isolation cum boredom, Theo starts breaking into other people’s houses and slowly this grows into a habit where he also starts picking up anything that attracts him. Thus, we find that Theo is a case of bad parenting and has grown into a rebel and petty thief just because he is unable to adjust to Jacob’s AS condition at home. c. Jacob Jacob shows all the typical characteristics of an Asperger Disorder person and is in fact even aware of his limitations. Jacob’s complete attention is focused on forensic science and he has little time to think of anything else. Though Jacob has a crush on his social skills counselor, he is also very practical about her death and sees is as quite a natural phenomena. Jacob also takes for granted his mother’s all consuming attention and affection and does not realizes that she may need time for her own or for his younger brother. In fact, he is so used to always having his way that it is difficult to see where the AS ends and a selfish child emerges. However, Jacob is not unselfish in protecting his younger brother from possible murder charges and therefore, camouflages Jesse’ death and give it a new direction. d. Rich Rich Matson is the head detective in Jesse’ case and it is his duty to bring justice to the victim. Rich has been well trained to look out and diagnose all the hidden symptoms from the body language of the culprits so that it would be easier to pin them down. Rich however, has been given partial training. Though he has been trained to nab normal criminals, he has not been trained to deal with abnormal people. Hence, he is unable to link the various Asperger Syndromes (such as an inability to make eye contact, constant ticks) to the said inability and instead takes them for symptoms of a guilty conscious. However, as a clever cop he is able to make Jacob confess that he had shifted the body from its actual death place. e. Oliver Oliver Bond is one of the important characters of the book who is much sympathetic towards Jacob Hunt and his particular disorder. Oliver tries to make Jacob’s trial as easy as possible by asking for him a number of sensory breaks. He demanded the court to give special treatment to Jacob’s trial because of his specific condition. He also won a suppression hearing for Jacob since the head detective had not read the Miranda Rights to him. Oliver is also able to appreciate all the sacrifices that Jacob’s mother Emma had done for him. f. Teachers and Other Students in the School Environment It has been shown that there is very little awareness about Asperger Syndrome and this truth is reflected in the overall attitude of the school towards Jacob. Work Cited Jodi Picoult. House Rules. Read More