I’m autistic and was raised a Baptist but no one in my church or family told me I was mentally ill or under demonic influence. However, I did struggle with low self-esteem over difficulty in drivers training as a young man. It wasn’t until I was twenty five that I got my license. If you read Boze Herrington’s blogs you will understand why he feels the need to expound on this. I don’t agree with him on everything, but he’s been through hell and learned to love again and I appreciate that he uses his personal experiences to restore hope to people. I hope he writes his autobiography one day.

As an autistic introvert I find the previous comment uninformed, to say the least. Autism is not a disease, and certainly not a brain injury. I do not have restricted diet, but I do work full-time at work that pays well and benefits from my autistic traits (I'm a copy editor and proofreader.) Nevertheless, I am autistic. As a young person, I struggled with religious belief, but have settled into a personal understanding of God that includes attending a church with a liberal (not a bad word) outlook and a traditional liturgy. My church has a lot of music, and the opportunity for the congregation to sing hymns is one of the reasons I attend. A church service where the congregation doesn't sing would never work for me.

Thanks for this book rec, Boze and your sensitive discussion of this topic. We moved to a traditional, liturgical church from a large, charismatic, evangelical congregation for the sake of our autistic son and the structure of the beautiful liturgical services have been balm to both him and the rest of our family. He has not been the only one to gain from that move. We also, not surprisingly, found other members of the congregation were on the spectrum. It is the healthiest church community I have ever been part of as it welcomes in all personality- and neuro-types.

As the mother of an autistic son I am so heartened by Boze’s review and will definitely buy this book. My son is kind , talkative, warm hearted and loving and is blessed to have religious studies teachers at school who enjoy discussing difficult theological questions with him . I agree with Boze that some churches do prize emotional responses over quietness and it can be problematic. We moved from going to a big ‘happy clappy’ church to the small one in our village and am so glad we did .

As a neurotypical introvert, I find the tendency to confuse autism with introversion very offensive and unhelpful to both groups of people. Introversion is a healthy trait defined by having a clear internal sense of right and wrong, and associated with a long healthy life. As such it's probably better understood as the natural condition that would be God's perfect will for humankind, which some people, for whatever reason, fail to achieve. Introverts would rather read a book or take a walk than play dodgeball with the other children. This is frustrating for teachers and often leads to emotional abuse, such as mislabelling introvert children "on the autistic spectrum." Autism is a disease condition associated with brain injury, defined by neurology so abnormal that the patient is unable to communicate with others. While some autistic patients, like Donna Williams, are helped enough by a restricted diet that they do learn to talk or write well, the word means that they really live in their own little world, often a world of pain. Some autistic patients are "high-functioning" enough to be inspired by the stories of Donna Williams and Temple Grandin. More autistic patients either aren't able to understand the stories or are frustrated and disappointed because they're not able to function as well as Grandin and Williams are. If authors like Schneider don't see how harmful confusing these conditions is, it may help to consider extroversion as having enough in common with sociopathy to be placed "on the sociopathic spectrum." Imagine telling parents that a child who runs up to greet other children is not *just* a little pest, but should be thought of as having the same kind of brainquirk as Osama bin Laden. Finally, when autistic patients are able to communicate well enough to be considered extroverts or introverts, they may (like Donna Williams) turn out to be extroverts. This makes it all the more important to make very clear, firm distinctions between the painful isolation neurodivergent conditions produce, and the self-isolation introverts use to reflect, create, and solve problems.