Melissa Wilde

SPED 3341
10/28/2014
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
By Mark Haddon, published in 2003
The book centers around a boy named Christopher, who is 15 years old. He is a British
boy who is living with Aspergers Syndrome. He grows up in a house with his mother and father,
until he is led to believe his mother has died (even though she has simply left her husband for
another man because she is frustrated with her life and dealing with Christopher) approximately
2 years before the story takes place. Although he struggles to connect socially or empathize with
anyone, his closest relationships seem to be with his teacher at his specialized school, Siobhan,
and his father who has worked very hard to accommodate their lifestyle to Christophers needs.
The key behaviors that this book displays are Christophers inability to make sense of
feelings, emotions, and figures of speech. This often results in him saying off-putting or strange
things to his neighbors or classmates. He also has some extreme sensory issues, being
overwhelmed by new locations and large groups of people, though he finds comfort in figures of
authority such as teachers and policemen. The final major thing we see he cannot fathom is the
concept of lying. Since he cannot understand why a person would lie to save anothers feelings
from being hurt, Christopher tells it like it is all of the timeand is beyond upset when others do
not do the same. Christopher does exhibit extraordinary calculative skills and other math
abilities, allowing for him to make sense of the world in a highly factual and logical manner.
Some of the necessary accommodations in Christophers life include not having to touch
or hug people; he and his father come up with a hand signal to substitute hugging each other.
Christopher has different levels of good and bad days that he self-monitors before he gets to
school, and once he gets there what he does throughout the day is based on this self-assessment

Melissa Wilde
SPED 3341
10/28/2014
on his mood. For example, when he is having a black day, he sits in the corner of the
classroom and reviews math, which gives him comfort, whereas on a good day he will
participate in class activities and talk to others in the school. In general throughout the book,
those who are closest to him know not to fight him on the little things if it will make for a
generally smoother day. Still, those who are unfamiliar to Christopher will provoke him in
certain ways that have the capability to make any day instantly bad.
Because of Christophers complete disregard for human emotion (besides the facts about
emotions he has been taught in school), those around him are frequently exasperated by the way
he ignores pleasantries and gets to the heart of the truth right away. His father, who is seen earlier
in the book and the person most patient with Christopher, becomes very upset with Christopher
when he exposes that his father had lied about his mothers death. The even bigger frustration for
the father is his inability to get across to Christopher why a parent would lie about something
like this. Those who arent aware of Christophers disability are off-put, but can also be
frightened or angry simply because they dont understand where his behavior is coming from.
As a reader, we sympathize with Christopher as we see how he struggles to understand
why people smile, cry, or express other feelings that he has to learn to recognize through a chart;
however, we also can find it very hard to connect to this first person narrative when emotion is
such an intrinsic part to how the majority of us live.
The impact on Christophers family is significant. Christophers mother leaves her
husband for another man simply because the promise of a new life that would be easier
meaning without the everyday struggle of Christopherwas too good to pass up. Christopher
even recognizes that his mother had less patience for him when she was around the house.

Melissa Wilde
SPED 3341
10/28/2014
However, we see this relationship begin to grown and heal when Christopher travels on his own
to see her in London. She acknowledges that she was not doing her best job before, but chooses
to move back to their original town and be part of Christophers life again, even if her marriage
was irreparable. The other major reaction we see to Christophers disability is Mr. Shears
(Christophers mothers lover), who gets drunkenly violent with Christopher (arguable the most
severe response to frustration with his disability), inspiring Christophers mother to leave him.
What I took away from this book is how complex and different the mind of someone on
the autism spectrum can be, and how many things that come second nature to many have to be
explicitly taught to these children. I also felt that self-assessment was a useful tool to help decide
what the best course of action will be for that day in the classroom. Finally, knowing the triggers
of a student and what calms them down best can make or break how you treat a student with any
disability, particularly those on the autism spectrum.