Without Reason : A Family Copes with Two Generations of Autism

Without Reason is Charles Hart's deeply personal, authoritative first-person probe of autism and its effects on his family. He takes us through his childhood with an autistic brother who needed constant care, to his scholarship education at Harvard, his own family of better circumstance, and the autism of his son Ted. Armed with the available knowledge about autism - one of the most enigmatic of all known disorders - he has set out to improve the quality of life for his brother, his son, and other persons with autism and their families.

Through his work with the Autism Society of America and the Association for Retarded Citizens, he has accomplished this goal by providing new opportunities for learning and growth for his brother Sumner, Ted, and other people with disabilities. This is a story of one family's triumph, its victory over a social system that rarely allows for special needs, and of personal reaction with a mysterious and frustrating disorder of the mind. Charles Hart understands autism as few others can and thus offers the reader an intimate view of a family's struggle, not for a cure but for understanding and accommodation of people disabled by autism.