Physical Guidance

Abstract

This chapter describes Jonah's life, which is described as an endless onslaught of impositions. It relates the things Jonah learned from the earliest age that were considered difficult and contested for severely autistic children, such as speaking, toilet training, table manners, and basic academic skills. It also mentions Jonah's time in the feeding clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was forced to eat. The chapter describes Jonah's diet when he was three years old, which was nothing but pretzels smeared with peanut butter. It examines Jonah's extreme selectivity towards food, which was explained by experts as an overall regression that many autistic kids experience between the ages of one and two.