Monday, July 28, 2008

Silent Boy

I bought a new book today, Silent Boy by Torey Hayden. It's a true story. Torey Hayden is a child psychologist who works with children with special needs. So she writes about her own experiences and covers subjects like autism,sexual abuse and Tourette's syndrome. I read a chapter of Silent Boy while i was in Popular. It's about 15 year old Kevin who is seriously afraid of the world and has not spoken a word in 8 years. Can you imagine that? Not speaking a word in 8 years!!!

Kevin is a boy with elective mutism,which is an emotional distubance that occurs mainly in kids. The kid is capable of speaking but because of psychological reasons refuses to do so.The book is about but how she tries to help the boy even if it proves to be a tough challenge and she realizes that it won't be easy to break the walls he built around himself.


Books like these really interest me whether they are fiction or non-fiction. Both Marti Leimbach's Daniel Isn't Talking about a mother who has an autistic child and the famous Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon who's main character has Asperger's syndrome are favorite's of mine. Reading stories like these is both heartbreaking and fascinating at times.

It's lovely to read about parents who while find it hard to deal with these special children make huge efforts to understand their world. I totally salute them. The patience they have, their dedication is exemplary. At the same time it's sad when sometimes the strain and exhaustion they experience breaks up their lives. A show i watched about autism talked about how 50% or more couples with autistic children get divorced.

So, i can' wait to see how this book turns out. It doesn't say in the back whether she succeeds in getting him to speak or not but it'll be interesting to see what she does to try and help him.


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