Editorial Review
In 1982, when he was four years old, Kamran Nazeer was enrolled in a special school alongside a dozen other children diagnosed with autism. Calling themselves the Idiots, these kids received care that was at the cutting edge of developmental psychology. Now a policy adviser in England, Kamran decides to visit four of his old classmates to find out the kind of lives that they are living now, how much they’ve been able to overcome—and what remains missing.
Bringing to life the texture of autistic lives and the limitations that the condition presents, Nazeer also relates the ways in which those can be eased over time, and with the right treatment.Using his own experiences to examine such topics as the difficulties of language, conversation as performance, and the politics of civility, Send in the Idiots is also a rare and provocative exploration of the way that people—all people—learn to think and feel. Written with unmatched insight and striking personal testimony, Kamran Nazeer’s account is a stunning, invaluable, and utterly unique contribution to the literature of what makes us human.
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Customer Reviews
Send in the idiots 
2006-12-17
I think this book was over written with a lot of fillers to make the book seem longer. There was a lot of unnecessary off the topic information to read that did not help to convey the lives of the autistic adults. I don't believe that the author has autism because he skips so many parts of his own childhood to only express what has happend to his classmates. Its amazing that the 4 autistic adults have successful careers and yet no one talks of the struggles they should have had to make it through elementary, high-school and college. The most informative information the author could have given parents like me with a child with autism is truely how where they able to learn to read and write and speak. It just doesn't happen overnight without a process. All the adults seemed to have been mainstreamed by middle school with no explanation of their struggle through school. I question if this book is true.
Amazing 
2006-11-10
Fasinating view of autism from someone who lives it. Multiple outcomes reported from the same viewpoint. Powerful read for those who live with/ work with peolpe on the spectrum.
You can't get any closer to the truth 2006-08-17
Our society has seen explosive growth in the number of people identified as autistic and an even larger growth of those identified as having symptoms on the "autistic spectrum". So I expect we'll see more and more books and articles describing these two populations and probably more books like "Send In the Idiots" which tells the story of autistic people as researched and written by an autistic person.
Reading "Send In the Idiots" by Kamran Nazeer is an interesting experience - as much for the writing style as for the content. Indeed, the writing style tells us as much about Nazeer as his book tells us about the four former classmates that he looks up and interviews 20 years later. I initially found myself criticizing the book's editing until I realized how important it was to the book's message.
For those who think an autistic diagnosis is akin to a death sentence or a sentence of life without the normal joys and disappointments, this book should be a revelation. Nazeer, in overly flowery language and excessive attention to detail, shows us how "normal" autistic people can be after (and if) they can manage the extra challenges that autism forces on them. Obsessive compulsive behavior, echolalia, depression, insecurity, paranoia, sensory overload, and other such companion effects of autism make it difficult but not impossible to live an interesting, satisfying life. And the stories of the four classmates show us that it is dangerous indeed to stereotype people with autism. They are each unique, special, human. In fact, we begin to see in them elements of our own personality and being to wonder if each of us is also on the "autism spectrum".
The book is upbeat and shows that autistic people do "get better", not in eliminating the disability but in coping with it and reducing its constraints. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in autism.
interesting for people with autism in the family 
2006-08-14
I have two children with autism and found this book to be very interesting regarding behaviors and how as adults the subjects lived. However the writing gets a little wordy. The author goes on in detail, for instance, on communication problems. Of course you have to remember that the author has autism himself, which makes me understand his need to go into detail. Still you can speed read over the parts in detail and the actual people are very interesting. I could see my children in some of the subjects and it helped me to understand them a little better.
An inside view of Autism 2006-07-10
This book was an eye-opener for me. Since we have a grandchild with ASD, it provided me(us) with an excellent inside and helped me(us) to understand the hurdles which confront children with ASD.
I sincerely hope that Kamran Nazeer will continue to inform the world about this problem -- he already has established himself as a great asset to help find methods which will deal with and asist autistic persons.
Best book I've read in months. 2007-05-16
I really loved this book. It starts out good, and just gets better. Nazeer is a talented writer, and this is a polished work on a wide variety of fascinating topics. These topics include not only autism itself, but range from the nature of political discourse and its impact on the functioning of a healthy democracy all the way to the extent to which our tend to categorize many abilities as innate and in doing so deny the hard work that is always required to develop those abilities.
It's rare to find a book that is this easy and absorbing to read, and yet where you so often find your thinking shifting subtly over and over as you absorb the ideas presented. I highly recommend it.
Eloquent Alien 2007-04-10
Nazeer says, "Autistic individuals find it difficult to develop intuition or empathy," and convincingly demonstrates that his experience of social interactions and certain kinds of frustration is very different from, well, my own anyway.
But, his writing is brilliant, his metaphors are fresh and apt, he's engaging...this is one of those books that's worth reading just for the writing. But in this case that gives my prejudices a puzzle: If that's not intuition and empathy, what is it? A hard-won kind, perhaps, and in many ways better than the kind I take for granted. But that upsets my ideas of what good writing comes from.
And in fact one of his chapters is about the common assumption that geniuses have it easy. The unthinking dismissal implied by saying that, he's gifted, he's smart, he's obsessed with the subject. Nazeer points out that there's still a hell of a lot of work in preparing for and executing any kind of great work. Still, looking back at Nazeer's own book, I wonder, can you create that kind of style, color, coherence and personality by... work?
In one chapter he rants against a kind of falseness common in conversations. Although I'm tempted to correct his calling it falseness, the point isn't easy to make. Often conversations float above factualness and their substance is about themes, patterns, meta concerns and a kind of shared tacit evolving conspiracy, but I'm left with the uneasy feeling that that sense of substance is "just an intuition," as if I understand it even less than Nazeer does.
Which is to say, I loved these bonus insights and paradoxes, especially when the ride to them was so comfortable and entertaining. I appreciated being allowed into the lives of these people, especially the author.
loved the insights 2007-03-03
My son has a diagnosis on the autism spectrum and my bookshelf is overflowing with books about autism. Unlike another reviewer I did not find this book discouraging.
This book gave me a wonderful insight into how it is for my son to learn the mechanics of communication that come intuatively to neurotypical people. And many times the mechanics are much more interesting to the author than the content of the conversation. For example he was told that his teacher had been assaulted by a parent. I was waiting for him to ask and share why this assault took place and what had happend to the parent and child but instead he went on about the conversation itself. I had to laugh because clearly very different aspects of that story were interesting to us and I appreciated that as an insight.
This book reminded me of books I have read by people traveling back to their home to find their roots to explain who they are. What does it mean for him and his old classmates to have autism? What has it ment to their lives? Autism has put odds in their way but has also forced them to become deliberate and resourceful.
So I guess if you are looking for a book that makes you see people with autism as overcoming all obstacles or being doomed or savants then this might not be your book. It is not a book offering knowledge on how to raise your autistic child. It is a book about a few people with autism who struggle and succed and fail much in the same and jet a different way as all of humanity.
A look on the Inside 2007-02-01
Autism is a world like no other. My child was diagnosed at the age of 19 months and we have been living in that world for 3 1/2 years. I felt this book was a very interesting and insightful view to the 'inside' of Autism. I have spent these years trying (and succeeding) at understanding my own child's mind. When I could not find materials to help educate her, I made them myself. I proactively worked at educating my child. I have a website [...] where I have made available items that have successfully helped my child and other children with Autism.
Understanding your child's mind is a wonderful tool for helping them. This was a good book to read and fast-reading book. I also gave me hope for my own child's quirky ways.
Not what I was hoping for 2007-01-26
This book held a lot of promise for me. As the mother of a 7 year old son with autism, I was hoping to read about how these children started on the path of intervention and therapy at a young age, and had terrific outcomes. What I got was instead rather depressing. First, it is not an easy book to read. The author seems to get mired in side information, such as the use of the word "genius" for far too long, distracting from the stories of the lives of the characters.
While I know my son will live with autism for his whole life, we always hold out hope that some of the behaviors that manifest in his place on the spectrum will be outgrown. That did not seem to be the case for some of the people in this book. I was very disturbed at Andre and his use of puppets as an adult. I fully understand that as an autisic person, he needs to use whatever strategies he can to cope, and I have no judgement on him. I can only keep working with my own child to try to lead him out of these behaviors.
I would not recommend this book to parents of young autistic children. I think it has the ability to dash some of the hope we need to have.
