Naoki Higashida

is an autistic Japanese writer. His best known work, the memoir The Reason I Jump, written when he was thirteen, has been translated into over 30 languages and was adapted for both stage and screen. He has published more than twenty books in Japan since 2004, including fiction, essays, poetry, and autobiographical works about his experience of autism. in Kimitsu, Japan. He lives in Chiba Prefecture outside Tokyo with his parents and sister, who is a year and a half older than him. Higashida was diagnosed with autism when he was five years old.

Higashida's mother says that he had an interest in words as a child and "would memorise the words he saw on signs and products, and write them on magnetic drawing boards or in the air." He attended a local primary school until fifth grade and then moved to a school for students with special needs, where he found that he was not alone in being neuroatypical, and that the students and teachers were kinder. Naoki Tsuzaka, who interviewed Higashida for The Asahi Shimbun, says "Higashida's mother noticed his power of expression and encouraged him to write poems and short stories." At ages 11 and 12, Higashida won first prize in a Japanese writing competition, the Grimm Fairy Tales Contest. Instead, he "began to aspire to being a writer",

His mother said that when he was younger, she would compare him to others and "tried to force him to be normal", but now she is "happy to see him find his own world (in writing)" and can just think of him as himself, without comparing him to anyone else. Describing this challenge, he says "when I try to speak, the words that come to mind disappear". can repeat back what someone else has said to him (known as echolalia); can sound out words when using his alphabet grid; and can sometimes read aloud, Prosody refers to elements of speech such as speed and intonation.

Higashida started to communicate via what he calls "hand-supported writing" or "letter-tracing" and then moved to using a letter board. He explains "The first—the hand-supported writing—involves writing on paper with a pen while an assistant is lightly cupping the back of the writer's hand to help keep him or her on task. Letter-tracing is not dissimilar, but here I trace the letters onto the open palm of a transcriber rather than onto paper. These days I use the alphabet-grid method—without anyone's help and without any physical contact—to express my thoughts and feelings." His autism can still make it difficult for him to communicate, for example, when he is interrupted by the need to pace or look out the window. Author David Mitchell says "I've watched Naoki produce a complex sentence within 60 seconds, but I've also seen him take 20 minutes to complete a line of just a few words." has a QWERTY layout, as well as the words "yes", "no", and "finished". Higashida says "I point to individual letters and 'voice' the letters as I touch them. I can also type on a computer keyboard, but I get stuck on or obsessed about certain letters. Or sometimes I'll type a word over and over." He generally uses the alphabet board to converse with people and the computer for writing. Typing is harder for him than using the alphabet board, as it involves starting with Roman letters and then extra steps to get to the Japanese kanji, and those steps can be distracting.

Career

Since 2004, Higashida has published more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction in Japan. The Reason I Jump was written when Higashida was 13, and published in Japan in 2007. The book features 58 often-asked questions about his autism, and his answers. It grew out of questions that his mother would ask him as she tried to understand some of his behavior and what made him happy. and a film. which covers some of the same territory as The Reason I Jump, but from the perspective of a young adult, and also includes a short story The Economist states that he is "probably the most widely read Japanese author after Haruki Murakami",

Higashida also blogs

Disputed authorship In a 2014 commentary in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, researchers Deborah Fein and Yoko Kamio questioned whether Higashida is truly the author of The Reason I Jump. Reviewing video of Higashida, they observed that his mother was usually touching his shoulder, back, or leg, and might be cuing him. They noted that while it would be "extremely easy to provide assurance that Naoki has the capacity to write prose of this level of sophistication," no such testing had been carried out, and concluded that there was "sufficient reason to doubt that Naoki is in fact the independent creator of the book's eloquent prose." Fein and Kamio also warned of the dangers of presenting facilitated communication as effective, noting the potential for harm to children and families. Katharine Beals said she knows of no evidence that Higashida can "communicate without a facilitator within cueing range". William Simmons, Janyce Boynton, and Todd Landman doubt that Higashida wrote any of the books attributed to him, and argue that if someone else is the actual author, it is a human rights concern to claim that Higashida authored these works, giving him no control over what is attributed to him.

Temple Grandin, an autistic inventor and author, was initially concerned that The Reason I Jump might have been written using facilitated communication, noting that "when this method is used, the facilitator is often the true author", but after reading the book, she says she became "confident" that it was Higashida's own work. However, Grandin wrote that there should have been more documentation on his ability to communicate independently.

Author David Mitchell, who translated The Reason I Jump into English, says there are videos of Higashida communicating independently, and that nobody else's hand is near Higashida's during his use of the alphabet board.

Books Jihei to iu boku no sekai, 自閉というぼくの世界, 2004 (My World of Autism) kono hoshi ni sunde iru boku no nakama tachi e, この地球にすんでいる僕の仲間たちへ, 2005 (To My Colleagues Living on This Planet) Yuuki wa oishii hazu, 勇気はおいしいはず, 2005 (Courage Should Be Delicious) Minna no shiranai umi no oto, みんなの知らない海の音, 2005 (Sound of the Ocean That Everyone Does Not Know) Kiran kiran; Akai mi, きらんきらん・赤い実, 2005 (Kiran Kiran; Red Fruit) Kikansha Kansuke, きかんしゃカンスケ, 2006 (Architect Kansuke) Kansuke to akai happa, カンスケとあかいはっぱ, 2006 (Kansuke and the Red Leaf) Jiheisho no boku ga tobihaneru riyu, 自閉症の僕が跳びはねる理由, 2007 (The Reason I Jump) Translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell, 2013 Kansuke to katatsumuri kun, カンスケとかたつむりくん, 2007 (Kansuke and the Little Snail) Kansuke to Yukiko chan, カンスケとゆきこちゃん, 2007 (Kansuke and Yukiko) Jiheisho no boku ga nokosite kita kotoba tachi, 自閉症の僕が残してきた言葉たち, 2008 (The Words I Have Left of Autism) Hentekorin, ヘンテコリン, 2008 (Strange) Kansuke no kurisumasu, カンスケのクリスマス, 2008 (Kansuke's Christmas) Zoku jiheisho no boku ga tobihaneru riyu, 続・自閉症の僕が跳びはねる理由, 2010 (The Reason I Jump, part 2) Kaze ni naru, 風になる, 2012 (Become the Wind) Arugamama ni jiheisho desu, あるがままに自閉症です, 2013 (Autistic As It Is) Tobihaneru shiko, 飛びはねる思考, 2014 (Jumping Spirit) Arigato wa boku no mimi ni kodama suru, ありがとうは僕の耳にこだまする, 2014 (Thank You, Echoes in My Ears) Nanakorobi yaoki, 七転び八起き, 2015 (Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8) Translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell, 2017