Joan,

         Autism is a condition, present at or before birth. It affects the
brain, but there is no medical marker or blood test that can detect it.
Autism has always been a rare condition and often children whose autism
showed up early, were institutionalized. Dustin Hoffman played an autistic
man in an great movie (name eludes my feeble brain!) that came out a few
years back.

         Understanding of why the man researched and wrote the book in
question I have. What I don't understand is why it was published. Perhaps
because autism is of interest to more people as the incidence of the
condition has risen multi-fold in the past two decades. It is no longer a
rare condition. Some people are trying to figure out if it's always been
around and just accepted, or if there is something that is causing a rise
in this condition among offspring.

                                                 Anne

At 09:05 AM 1/9/03 -0500, you wrote:
>Why does anyone think Jefferson was autistic or had Asperger disease?  And
>by the way, what is that disease?  I never heard of it.

Anne Pemberton
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http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org

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