Beyond the Silence: My Life, the World and Autism

By Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay.

National Autistic Society

£7.99

ISBN 1 899280 331 6

Tito is a remarkably gifted 12-year-old Indian boy and the
subject of the BBC television documentary, Inside Story :Tito’s
Story. This book is the “inside story”, an amazing collection
of prose and poetry written by Tito between the age of eight and 11
that gives a first-hand account of what it is like to be
autistic.

The book has three parts. The first is Tito’s own account of his
life to date. In the second part he reflects on his philosophy in
prose, in the third part he shares some poems. He reflects on his
early encounters with the world he experienced. He shares his
inside view of his visits to psychologists, psychiatrists,
neurologists and speech therapists as his parents seek a
diagnosis.

By the age of four he was diagnosed autistic. Although he was
unable to communicate through speech, his mother discovered that
with the aid of an alphabet board he could communicate by
writing.

When Tito came to England in December 1999 he visited the
National Autistic Society’s Centre for Social and Communication
Disorders, where he was seen by Dr Lorna Wing, the leading UK
authority on autistic children.

In her foreword to this book she remarks that although his
social behaviour is that of a child with classical autism, “the
contrast between his overt, typically autistic behaviour and the
sophistication of the language expressed through his alphabet board
was truly amazing”. This is an exceptional book about an
exceptional child.

Oliver Russell is a psychiatrist and was, until
recently, director, Norah Fry Research Centre, University of
Bristol.