Spring 2023 · Vol. 52 No. 1 · pp. 74–75
Book Review
On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity
Daniel Bowman, Jr.. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2021. 242 pages.
On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, & the Gifts of Neurodiversity is a collection of essays written by Daniel Bowman Jr., a professor of English at Taylor University in Indiana. He is Christian, married, with two children. He is also an autistic (the preferred term) and a widely published poet.
These wide-ranging essays are grouped according to their dominant themes: Foundations (of understanding autism), Place (and its central importance to autistics in maintaining equilibrium), Community, Worship and Service (and the unique way autistics can and cannot enter into such intense collective engagement), Writing, Teaching and Learning (and the gifts that autistics bring to their understanding of these disciplines), and Family and Identity (an overview of the unique needs and challenges of autistics as they navigate their important places of belonging.)
The first story, found in the “prelude,” is the prequel to Bowman’s diagnosis of autism as an adult. His wife and children have left him. We subsequently learn it is a temporary leaving, but that is not made clear at the beginning of the story. Unable to contend with his latest “meltdown,” his wife has taken the children, leaving Daniel to his own self-reflection, his own suicidal ideation. In this opening story we learn of his inability to manage strong emotions and his difficulty in naming his thoughts or his feelings when under emotional distress. We, as readers, enter his confusion and his ache to undo whatever he has done that has driven his family away. We share his bewilderment, and then, too, the dawning realization that what afflicts him has a name: autism.
The essays that follow are culled from years of writing and publishing. Each one has its own vantage point on the world of autism. They are his decade-long musing on his own life as a neurodivergent and his strong desire to help neurotypical people truly understand the autistic.
Essential to the message of the book is the idea that autistic people must speak for themselves. It is disrespectful and unhelpful to have neurotypical people speaking on behalf of the neurodivergent. And, as Bowman demonstrates, when they do speak for the autistics, they do it badly. Oftentimes, they convey that the autistic is somehow wrong or lacking, because autistics do not think, feel, or act, like a neurotypical person. One of Bowman’s key points in all his essays is the assertion that autistics are different than neurotypical people, not wrong. Moreover, he suggests that the life of the autistic is made unnecessarily difficult by the insistence of the neurotypical that theirs is the correct way to live. {75}
Bowman describes the ability of the autistic to feel with great intensity as a gift. Once understood and properly accounted for, these powerful feelings bring fuller experiences of life and great intuition. Similarly, autistics’ ability to focus on one topic to the exclusion of all else can be a gift. Bowman credits this attention to detail and sustained concentration with his accomplishment as a poet and an English professor.
Always speaking in the first person and unapologetically claiming unique neurological wiring as valuable and knowable, Bowman offers some key insights into the autistic mind and heart. Autistics think in pictures, are often bullied as children and teens (because they are trusting and unquestioningly loyal), struggle with executive functioning (like time management, starting and finishing tasks, prioritizing and organizing), struggle with sensory overwhelm, need routines, need the familiar, need predictability, find social interactions bewildering, need authenticity (truth-telling) in relationships, cannot bear authoritarian demands, and respond very well to tenderness. While Bowman is quick to point readers to other sources to further their understanding of autistics, he does a serviceable job of breaking down the vital dimensions of struggle as experienced by the autistic and as observed and misunderstood by the neurotypical.
Reading these personal essays written from the perspective of an autistic provides a helpful frame of reference for understanding autism on a deeper level. Those with little experience of autism may be surprised to learn that autistics tend to feel more emotion than the neurotypical, not less. What can be read as stoicism is actually the central nervous system responding to being overwhelmed. This fact alone could prove transformative as neurotypical people engage with autistics.
Bowman’s writing is clear and precise. He easily takes us along on his journey of the mind and heart. Occasionally, the transitions in ideas are not as smooth as they might be, and he seems reluctant to see all the ways in which the struggles of the autistic are shared by those with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Highly-Sensitive, or those with Social Anxiety Disorder. Although a comparative analysis of diagnoses was not the purpose of his collection of essays, his writing would have been strengthened by a clear acknowledgement that those similarities exist.
In all, Bowman gives us an important look into the mind and life of an autistic. Written in a breezy narrative style, this book would appeal to anyone interested in a better understanding of the autistic.
