The Reason I Jump: self promotion trumps intellectual honesty, Part II

Novelist David Mitchell feels he’s figured out autism. It is not a socio-cognitive disorder, but a communication disorder. This communication disorder, he says, “locks you in, it makes it very very hard to express yourself in any way.”

What has inspired Mitchell’s revelation about autism is a single book of questionable authenticity: Naoki Higashida’s The Reason I Jump. Originally written in Japanese, purportedly by a non-speaking autistic boy using a letterboard, the book was later translated into English by Mitchell and his wife. Most recently, it has morphed into the movie The Reason I Jump which features five other individuals with autism, two of whom use letterboards. See here and here for discussion.

The Reason I Jump: self promotion trumps intellectual honesty, Part I

As the pro-FC movie “The Reason I Jump” (see here for a critique) continues to make its rounds through the film festival circuit and onto Neflix, garnering rave reviews in major newspapers, the men behind the production have been going on the attack against the FC skeptics.