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Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Testing Sensory and Multisensory Function in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 22, 2015
Asperger's Syndrome, Subjectivity and the Senses
Ellen Badone1, David Nicholas2, Wendy Roberts3
1McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. badone@mcmaster.ca.
Abstract:
Situated at the intersection of anthropological work on illness narratives and research on the anthropology of autism, this paper is a close reading of an autobiographical narrative recounted by Peter, a young man diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a type of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Responding to Solomon's (2010a:252) call for phenomenologically grounded accounts of "the subjective, sensory, and perceptual experiences of autism … based on personal narratives and practices of being and self-awareness," this paper calls into question key assumptions in the clinical and popular literature about ASD relating to theory of mind, empathy, capacity for metaphorical thinking, and ASD as a life-long condition.
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