Book Review: The Reason I Jump

English Book Cover

Japanese Book Cover

Well, I seem to be on a roll.

So let's get the disclaimers out of the way, shall we?

I have no contact with the author or the publishers of the book I am about to review.  To alleviate fears of bias, let me state that I read this book through a really good friend who shared her copy with me.

And to again quote from previous reviews, "I will state that all that will be written from here on are my personal opinions and are not, in any way, meant to be taken as gospel truth or medical advice. I am not a medical practitioner or a child developmental expert. I am just a former teacher, a simple mother, a possibly autistic woman with a child who has autism."

We're clear?  Okay, let's do this.

The author of this book is Naoki Higashida, born in 1992 in Japan, and was soon diagnosed with autistic tendencies in 1998.  Supposedly, as a thirteen-year-old boy, he wrote 自閉症の僕が跳びはねる理由～会話のできない中学生がつづる内なる心～ (Jiheishō no Boku ga Tobihaneru Riyū ~Kaiwa no Dekinai Chūgakusei ga Tsuzuru Uchinaru Kokoro~).

Quite a mouthful of a title.

Google translates this to "Reason why the servant of autism jumps ~ Inner heart spelling junior high school students who can not talk ~".

The book was purportedly written by Higashida using a method that his mother invented called facilitated finger writing.  We'll get into this method a little later in the review.  The book was then published in 2007, when Higashida was fifteen.

In 2013, David Mitchell and his wife Keiko Yoshida, at the end of their rope in dealing with their ASD child, found this book and read it.  So touched by the contents that they translated the book into English with Higashida's permission.  The Reason I Jump is the result.  This book has also been translated in several languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Slovak, Greek and Danish.

My thoughts on this book is that is was an easier read than The Conscious Parent's Guide to Autism.  However, the approach to reading this was really different.  If Marci Lebowitz wrote her book aiming to give parents of ASD children practical tips and options to dealing with and helping their child, Higashida has gone a more philosophical route with his autism diagnosis.  The book is split into 58 short chapters, each titled as a question usually asked of one who has the condition.

The author goes to address questions like, "Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?"  "Why can't you make eye contact while you're talking?"  "Why do you like spinning?"  "Why can you never sit still?"  He would insert small stories in between, and even talk about how he felt growing up with the condition.  A lot of his answers resonated with me, as I do relate to a lot of the behaviors and feelings, especially when being told off for behaving in a certain way, but also feeling helpless because I am unable to stop it.

It's beautifully written.  However, in the spirit of impartiality, there have been some questions raised with this book.  As such many people wonder if Higashida himself did write the book, questioning how much influence his mother, or even the translators Mitchell and Yoshida, had in the contents.

The biggest question is what exactly is the method of facilitated finger writing that Higashida claimed to use to write and communicate.

This method falls under what is called facilitated communication.  Research Autism defines this as the following:

Facilitated communication (also known as supported typing) is a form of augmentative and alternative communication in which someone physically supports an autistic person and helps him to point at pictures or words.

Facilitated communication is based on the idea that many of the difficulties faced by autistic people are due to movement difficulties rather than to social or communication difficulties.

The communication partner (usually called a facilitator) physically supports the autistic person so that he can point to pictures, symbols, letters and/or words using a computer keyboard or letter/picturebooks. By doing this, the autistic person can demonstrate what he wants to communicate.

Autistic people who use facilitated communication often use it as part of a total communication approach. For example, they may use it in combination with other methods of communication such as speech or sign language.

They continue on to say that "[t]here is a significant body of research evidence to show that facilitated communication is ineffective when used with people on the autism spectrum.

There is also evidence that facilitated communication can lead to significant harm.

For these reasons we do not believe that it is an appropriate intervention for people on the autism spectrum."

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association also conducted a study on facilitated communication, and their recommendation states that "[n]either the reliability nor the validity of techniques associated with facilitated communication have been demonstrated satisfactorily at this time. Techniques are based on trainers' clinical experiences and hypotheses."

I will leave the study with you to peruse for your own information.  Again, please do consult with your child's doctors, therapists and teachers if you intend to pursue any form of intervention or treatment for your ASD child.  Do what is best for him/her, and arm yourself with information and knowledge.  Keep an open mind and check both sides of the argument for every avenue.  Then make your decision prayerfully and carefully.

A few sentences did strike me as rather odd, like describing people with autism to be those who want to travel back in time, back to when we humans lived in the water as aquatic life-forms, as the author so put it.  It's nothing too jarring, just a little strange to me.

To wrap this up, I may have some reservations of the methods used to write this book, but the content is quite encouraging.  If we're to take it at its face value, it's a rather philosophical book of the musings of the thirteen-year-old non-verbal boy with autism.  And if that is the case, he shows that he understands more than what most people assume he does or doesn't.

One of my favorite lines from this book is this.  "Please handle and approach our behavioral issues with a strong faith that they are definitely going to pass, at some point in the future.  When we are stopped from doing what we want, we may make a terrible song and dance about it, but in time we'll get used to the idea.  And until we reach that point, we'd like you to stick with it, and stick with us."

And with that, this book is given 4 out of 5 stars from me.