FALL DOWN 7 TIMES GET UP 8

I have just finished reading a remarkable book. Details below * and **
The title comes from a Japanese saying which relates to persistence.

It is a translation of a story written by a Japanese lad, Naoki Higashida. This is him. Photo from the Guardian article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/16/fall-down-7-times-get-up-8-naoki-higashida-review-autism 

 Photograph: Jun Murozono

As the reviewer Charlotte Moore states: "Naoki Higashida is a 24-year-old man with severe, largely non-verbal autism. Though he cannot hold a conversation, he uses an alphabet grid to build up sentences, which are taken down by a transcriber. By this method he produced his first book, The Reason I Jump, when he was only 13. It quickly became an autism classic."

 

I have not read the first book (stated above) in which he describes his non-verbal autistic childhood. In this one he is speaking as a young adult; for me  it was an eye-opener. 

 

The translator, David Mitchell uses the term 'neuro-atypical' for people like Naoki and 'neurotypical', i.e. we might call 'normal' people.

The book contains a collection of Naoki's observations, inner thoughts and suggestions for helping to deal with people like himself.

"The word for 'autism' in Japanese is jiheisho and conveys an image of poeple locking themselves up inside themselves. This is misleading."  He describes life  without being able to get a word or words out.  Where he eventually began to start getting a few words to come out after many years, he describes the mental process to get there and the effort it involved.  He also gives lots of example of things that really throw him e.g. change of plan in, say, a journey.

 

He says that trying to change behaviour that is causing distress is like asking someone to stop vomiting.  

 

I realize now that I used to baby-sit for a family whose middle child was like this...but as far as I can remember the word 'autistic' was never in use.

 

 

* Details:

Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism is a book written in 2015 by Japanese author Naoki Higashida when he was between the ages of 18 and 22. [Wikipedia] 

Author: Naoki Higashida
Page count: 240
Publisher: Random House

Preceded by: The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Published in English: 2017

** This book is published 2017 in UK by Sceptre