A Literal Summary of Our Discussion of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Marcia – The parents made me angry.

Linda – Kids like that are very difficult. Stressful, especially on the parents’ marriage.

Ken – The author did well because you could feel the parental anger. (Ken worked with autistic kids. One had high IQ, so they made him the wizard in Wizard of Oz production.)

Lydia – Most British people don’t curse as much as in the book. The level of education of neighbors etc in the book was evidently low.

Cindy T. At the Zach Theater production, the lead was hearing-impaired, and there was lots of cursing (not necessarily related to the hearing impairment).

Linda – The author captured the boy’s voice; the reader was able to get into his head. The colors and Christopher’s interpreting them as indicating a bad or good day is typical of autism.  Autism is a spectrum, people can have just 1 or 2 aspects.

Judy – Christopher chose behaviors that gave him comfort.

Joanne – 1% of kids are different.

Kathy – Recommends The Good Dr.

The Good Doctor is a very popular show on TV is about a doctor who has autism. There was an episode recently about a teenaged patient who had autism; in this case, they used an actor who really did have autism. On the show, the patient’s parents did not want the autistic doctor to operate on their son, thus showing a parental lack of trust of autistic persons.

Joanne – The book reminded her of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Lydia –Christopher’s dad killed the dog because of his anger that Christopher’s mother was dating the man who owned the dog.

Ken – Christopher’s father was drinking Scotch, and Christopher approached and saw that his Dad was sad and asked whether it was because of the dog’s death. Father said, “You could say that.”

Cindy T. – These kids can be difficult.

Ken – Christopher’s theology is a little weird – he thought people might want to keep living and don’t like the idea of others moving into their homes and putting their stuff into the trash.

Joyce Z. noted that communities have various ways to deal with autistic kids. This set off a tangent about autistic kids and various laws involved with community/state support, and group homes.

Cindy T – The play at Zach Theater was in some parts word-for-word from the book.

Joanne – Someone was reading Christopher’s words on the stage.

Carla – Christopher’s school catered to the lowest level.

Linda – Mentioned she was reminded of the Doc Martin show on TV; that doctor also had no filters in expressing his feelings and thoughts.

Joanne – Many scientists have Asperger’s. Christopher would fit in. Temple Grandin works with large animals and has opened our eyes to what’s inside these people.

Joyce M. asked us to consider what might be likely for the future of a kid like Christopher.

Pam – The way Christopher was portrayed, he could do OK in a university. Challenges in young life prepared him.

Joyce – He had internalized some of the helping ideas he had received from his teachers, including some ways to control one’s environment. Sees promise of him being functional.

Ken expressed concern about when Christopher would have meltdowns as he grew older, as these seemed somewhat inevitable.

Joanne – He got to London, thus indicating a lot of coping and succeeding.

Marcia – He hit the police officer. This kind of behavior could get him tazered and/or arrested.

Joyce M. – A child’s acting out gets moderated with age. There is hope for Christopher.

Pam – In childhood, Christopher had a lot of heartache. Pam didn’t think that it was realistic that the mother who left for 2 years would come back. Christopher’s life didn’t seem secure.  His parents weren’t going to be dependable.

Joanne – The parents might have had some redemption if Christopher’s mother had moved back in with her husband.

Marcia – It would be very difficult for an autistic kid to experience the way his father lied about his mother’s running off with the neighbor, leading Christopher to believe his mother had died.

Lydia – Christopher’s mother showed her lack of understanding of Christopher’s needs when she took him to overwhelming place to buy some clothes for him. A small store with few customers and few choices of clothing would have been much more comfortable for Christopher.

Linda – Parents of disabled kids often get into groups together. Literate parents read a lot and use every bit of information and resources they can.

Claudia – It seemed the author had researched autistic personalities well. Christopher could be a composite of various autistic problems and behaviors the author read about.

Joanne – The author said he didn’t do research.

Carla – People who have Asperger’s and work with computers have been successful during the recent generation(s) during the recent high-tech time. These people have had more children than they might have during a less computer-saturated time, and there have been more of kids born with spectrum disorders.

Joyce – Some tech industry hiring Asperger’s people to work, not as charity but because they are good at that kind of work.

Joanne – Christopher’s teacher was important, perhaps moreso than his parents.
Christopher might regress when he is on his own without that teacher and similar support.

Joyce mentioned an article about 8-year old who screamed constantly on an airplane.

Marcia – How much of syndrome is caused by bad parenting?

Joyce M. – You can create a badly behaved kid by genetics or parenting. Many think vaccinations cause autism. If the disorders are across a spectrum, maybe there are different causes for different aspects.

Carla and Marcia both said and agreed that everyone has some autistic characteristics and behaviors. It might be so slight that you don't notice it until you realize that you have some idiosyncrasy that, even though it doesn't make you fully autistic or wouldn't be diagnosed that way, it is on the autism spectrum.

Marcia – Causes could be allergies, gluten etc.

There was some discussion of the math problem that was described in detail in the book.

Claudia – This was my second reading of the book. I found long descriptions of thought processes a little boring but had enjoyed all of the book a lot originally.