ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates that the autistic traits interact with adaptive often creative capacities and qualities. It presents Dr. Thielst’s biography of her daughter, Anna, a little girl with autism who at age five didn’t speak or answer to her name. The book provides a chronological presentation by Dr. T of her experience as mother – puzzled, disappointed, blamed – but determined and innovative – and the eventually successful facilitator for Anna to emerge from the disability of an autistic state to an energized productive adolescent and adult. It informs the reader of the discovery of autism as a developmental disorder. The book presents a description of adaptive development for comparison. It includes a summary of research revealing the abilities and capacities of both a full-term healthily relating neonate and a one-year-old infant.
