The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a vivid and informative collection of clinical cases by Oliver Sacks. I have a passion for learning about the autism spectrum and studying the many extraordinary cases. Thus, I chose to review Sack’s clinical experience with The Autist Artist. The Autist Artist describes Sacks encounter with Jose, an artistic young man suffering from seizures and “secondary autism”. It was stated that Jose was around 21 years of age, however it was also stated multiple times that Jose had been suffering from his disorders for 15 years since the young age of eight (which would make him 23). At 8 years old, Jose contracted a severe fever followed by “continuing, seizures, and the rapid appearance of a brain- damaged or autistic condition”. Jose’s diagnosis of acquired/ secondary autism does not exist according to today’s standards of the autism spectrum. However, Jose did possess autistic like symptoms associated with communication, such as mutism and incomprehension of words and …show more content…
Sacks realized from the beginning of his time with Jose that his artistic ability was strength. Because sketching gave Jose an expressive outlet he was able to develop the motivation to fill the gap between him and the world outside of his mind. Jose was no longer trapped within himself. In association with his artistic ability, Dr. Sacks found Jose’s he’s ability to direct his imagination towards his sketches, his skill of personifying the characters he sketched, and his ability to re draw pictures with such accuracy to be just a few of his strengths. Dr. Sacks did not focus too much on Jose’s challenges, because most of them were obvious. It is clear that the vast amount of seizures that Jose had was an extreme challenge and impact in his life, along with his inability to produce and understand speech sounds and words. Rather than outline Jose’s limitations, Dr. Sacks highlighted his progress and improvement although Jose was sometimes