Naoki higashida biography samples

2007 biography book by Naoki Higashida

The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism (Japanese: 自閉症の僕が跳びはねる理由～会話のできない中学生がつづる内なる心～, Hepburn: Jiheishō no Boku ga Tobihaneru Riyū ~Kaiwa no Dekinai Chūgakusei ga Tsuzuru Uchinaru Kokoro~) is an autobiography attributed to Naoki Higashida, a largely nonspeakingautistic person from Japan. It was first published in Japan in 2007. The English translation, by Keiko Yoshida and her husband, English author David Mitchell, was published in 2013.

The book alleges that its author, Higashida, learned to communicate using a version of the scientifically discredited technique of facilitated communication,^[1] which raises suspicions about the book's authorship. Psychologist Jens Hellmann said that the accounts "resemble what I would deem very close to an autistic child's parents' dream."^[2][3]

The book became a New York Times bestseller^[4] and a Sunday Times bes