The Wild Boy Introduction

An Autism Book review by Rich Shull on the Blog Autism Pre Rain Man Autism
June 2009

Mordicai Gerstein , The Wild Boy

Based on a true story. The Wild Boy of Aveyron

Frances Foster Books ,New York c.1998 Mordicai Gerstein

(note this book is a simple picture book intended for children)

Quoted text last page -" Authors Note"

""" The boy known as Victor, the wild child of Averyron was captured in the town of Saint-Sernin in the Aveyron district of southern France on January 8, 1800. After being studied by a local naturalist ,he was sent to Paris for further study by scientists there. He arrived to Paris on august 6, just a few months after Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the french republic. Almost all the experts declared Victor hopelessly retarded ,but a twenty -six year old doctor, Jean Marc-Gaspard Itard, believed Victor's animal-like behavior and inability to speak were the result of his having live alone for years in the wild . Itard worked with victor for six years,and while much progress was made, Victor never learned to speak.

Dr. Itard wrote two reports on his work with the boy and became world famous. Many of the teaching methods he devised are now used in special education, and Maria Montessori based much of her work on Itard's reports.

Madame Guerin continued to care for Victor in a small house in Paris until he died in 1828 at about the age of forty. His origins are still a mystery"""

From Rich

This story the boy from Aveyron has intrigued me for years, It was often noted in old autism and indeed it fits the old autism , pre rain man autism to a tee. Old working autism as I know it reaches out and threw from the origins of this story to the outer limits of man's mind, yes, Einstein. Naturally the boy was captured and studied and the "experts" gave up on the lad. A normal thinker even an expert normal thinker and a doctor would naturally give up and simply call the guy a retard and shove him off in a corner just like they did. Then as now psychology and medical experts missed the whole point to his state of mind and being. It is absolutely ridiculous to expect normal thinkers centuries ago or even today to know what they just missed in terms of discovering man's mind, they don't even know what questions to ask to even discover the point of view necessary to even get a grip.

Autism is the building blocks of man's mind and indeed the odd cave person behavior of Victor fits in perfectly with autism. If science knew Victor's thoughts (the base line human thoughts) they could see where he was coming from and while he presented as dumb he was simply uneducated. Normal Thoughts you use are short cutted versions of his and happen during the autistic persons lack of eye contact thought process. These autism thoughts (picture thoughts) explain Victors deafness ,lack of pain, his inabilility to talk and many other things. If autism's lack of eye contact thought process was known and then taught in MR/DD schools most MR/DD Students would thrive. These base line thoughts are below 123 and the ABC's and the reason they were never discovered was they are INVISIBLE and normal people would call them daydream thoughts.

It seems evolution blessed most of mankind with normal thoughts- your everyday thoughts- but those are based on the deep one by one building block thoughts of autism. These thoughts offer the entire gambit of human thoughts and everything psychology fits in the total scheme. The same human mind that presents as MR/DD and a savant, and a normal person and Einstein and Di Vinci among others IS the very same mind your using RIGHT NOW. There are 1000's more chapter to write to this autism ,cave person story that connect and explain mans mind from end to end. Naturally mankind's best and brightest normal thinkers ,the people running the world will never see this chance to figure out real nitty gritty of man's mind. Despite a living anthropology of well healed autistic people from around the world, that have all done the double bind autism experience and figured out a never in print before different kind of human thought process we are just too little too late and especially now that "AUTISM SPEAKS" (reference to modern org) and speaks for us and like in the 1800's tells us we are retards. Sorry they are the ones missing the point. Ignorance really is ignorant and there is no way around that so I suspect 200 years from now my counterparts will be writing the same words I am now and mankind will be as lost as ever. Di Vinci said something along the lines of "wake up you ignorant humans". He was so right.

The next few posts on my blog will cover points of this book and hopefully explain the other side to Autism and man's mind. Naturally autism experts galore will be there to shoot it down, but until they have walked a mile in our shoes and figured out our picutre thoughts and keen senses for themselves they don't know what they have missed. Rich Shull on the Blog Pre Rain Man Autism June 2009