Quite embarrassingly, I didn’t know so much about autism itself before I dealt with this tremendous guide. Although it doesn’t have so many pages, I found it very informative and useful. Especially, I’m intrigued by Dr. Urith’s explanations on the follows:
1. What neurotypical means
2. Weak central coherence
I wasn’t quite sure what the prefix, neuro- means though neurotypical (NT) is one of the key words on autism/Asperger’s. Sure thing, I couldn’t find the word even in my dictionary. I mean, I could manage to guess it might mean the opposite to people with developmental impairments. However, I didn’t quite catch why. I felt like I could clear up my haze when I found out Dr. Frith says neuro- definitely means the brain. “I guessed right! Neurotypical shows the brain works normally or typically.” - That’s what I exactly thought!

I realized central coherence is crucial for neurodevelopment. People with strong central coherence can see the whole point, while those with weak one tend to dwell on parts. So I suppose some autistic people have such weak central coherence that they tend to be perfectionists, which makes life more stressful. Positively, they seem to know the details pretty well. In my case, I was incredibly good at kanji (Chinese characters) in my childhood. But the trouble was that I was horrible at comprehending the whole sentence. And I suspected that slowed communication skills. The thing is people with weak central coherence find it so hard to catch the whole content they often tend to miss what matters most.

Overall, this autism guide is suitable if you would like to know the difference between NT’s and people with autism/Asperger’s with regard to neurodevelopmental psychology.