The subject of autism has enjoyed a considerable boom in recent years. A wealth of autobiographical reports on autistic perception, thinking and action by individuals who are affected has challenged the widespread clinical and pathologizing view of autism. This volume aims to understand the views of autistic individuals and to compare them with scientific findings, especially from the field of the neurosciences. Neuroscientific findings are shedding new light on the abilities and intelligence of people in the autistic spectrum. The characteristics that have been identified are then illuminated here by autistic persons themselves & with an ?inside view=, so to speak: perceptual peculiarities, unusual learning behaviour, focused thinking, difficulties in communicating and in social interaction, etc.