Book review: The passionate mind: how people with autism learn by Wendy Lawson

A lot has been written about Theory of mind by great researchers. Theory of mind is that theory that autistics are unable to predict or have enough imagination to intuite what a person might be thinking or feeling. Most of this has been written by non-autistic researchers.

Here comes Wendy Lawson, whom is autistic herself and has written a wonderful, although rather unknown book about theory of mind and how the past theories all have flaws into them. In this book she proposes a new theory that might help understand autistics why they have difficulties with certain things and not with other things. It also takes into account sensory processing difficulties besides our difficulties of intuiting peoples thoughts and emotions.

I think this is a must read for everyone involved with autistics, as it might give a better understanding on how autistics think and feel and how we process information especially. It might help further the research in autism, as she says herself that her theory needs to be tested more to become a viable framework for autism.

My personal opinion is that this theory should be valued above all other theories because it is written by an actually autistic and takes into account everything about an autistic, which makes it a very plausible explanation for the way our mind works.

If you want to read the book for yourself, then you can click on the affiliate link here and buy yourself a copy.