Autism

When her son turned 2 years old, Kammy Kramer asked her pediatrician why Elliott was still not speaking. It was Kramer’s fourth visit in six months, and her exasperated pediatrician told her to consult a speech therapist.
Shortly after this visit, Elliott’s aggressions began. He lashed out in physical violence more than 100 times a day, mostly at his mother and father.
But he was also violent toward his infant younger brother, Henry.
Once, Elliott pushed Henry down the stairs. Other times he chased him with knives.

Dr. Seyyed Fatemi has spent the past 13 years looking at brain disorders through a microscope. But he cannot forget what he saw with his own two eyes.
In the late 1980s, after years as a scientist, Fatemi’s career took a vital detour out of the laboratory and into the hospital.
It was during his residency that Fatemi treated patients for the first time. He met schizophrenics haunted by voices in their heads and desperate parents whose autistic children could not recognize them.