[Case report. Therapeutic intervention using a "particular interest" of an autistic child with visual agnosia]

Although special education under its diverse forms is consensually recognized as the privileged area of pervasive developmental delay, there is little studies on re-education intervention for autistic persons of normal intelligence. This article presents a psychoeducative intervention with a three year old autistic boy in a pedopsychiatric day care centre. The interest of this observation is double. On the one hand, this child, aside from autism, is carrier of an exceptional ailment: visual agnosia. On the other hand, his "restrictive autistic interest", namely perceptive attraction and his questioning of a particular class of objects or a particular parameter of these objects were used as lever to bring him to improve his capacities of communication and social interactions.