2 Lack of Social and Emotional Reciprocity
An autistic child has lack of social and emotional reciprocity. It can be seen when a child is uninterested in doing things to please his parents or others. He is
uninterested to learn a new thing to earn attention or approval of other people Siegel 91. In another word, an autistic child has low desire to please other
people and low response to social praise.
3 Lack of Social Imitation
Usually, children learn new thing by” automatically” copying other children and adults because most things that others do are somewhat or very interesting,
merely because someone else is engaged in their activity. An autistic child does not seem to be motivated to copy action from other people Siegel 92.
2. Characteristics of Communicative Autistic Learning Disabilities 1 Deficits in Understanding Body language and Facial Expression
A child who suffers from autism appears to have poor comprehension of gestures or facial expression such as smile or nods of encouragement, frowning,
shaking head “no” Siegel 94.
2 Deficits in Expressive Body Language and Facial Expressiveness
An autistic child does not use a full or subtle range of facial expressiveness or body language to convey emotion communicatively Siegel 94.
3 Deficits in Understanding Spoken Language
Most autistic children have “selective hearing” which means an autistic child responds to some thing like a jingle but no to others. For autistic children, words
or phrases once heard may not reappear increasingly or ever again. This is why they have difficulties in understanding spoken language Siegel 94-95
3. Characteristics of Non-Social Autistic Learning Disabilities 1 Lack of Imagination in Play
Children with autism tend to show little fantasy, limited representation of social situation and limited language use as part of play Siegel 99.
2 Stereotyped and Repetitive Interest
Children with autism tend to avoid novel objects and actions. They prefer familiar actions to new actions Siegel 99.
B. Criticism
Mark Haddons novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a new novel. The criticism on Mark Haddon and his literary works comes from
many sources such as daily news, magazines, and also from the readers. The criticism is used for helping the reader to understand the author’s work deeper.
Mark Haddon is a great British writer especially in children book and television screen-plays. Many people are interested in reading this novel because this novel
is easy to read. Therefore, some comments of other people will be presented in this section
The first comment is from Entertainment Weekly. It is said that Haddons book illuminates the way one mind works so precisely, so humanely, that it reads like
both an acutely observed case study and an artful exploration of a different PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
mystery: the thoughts and feeling we share even with those very different from us.
The second comment is from Arthur Golden, the author of Memoirs of a Geeisha. He says that he has never read anything quite like Mark Haddon’s funny
and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. He advises us to buy two copies, the readers wont want to lend their
out. The other comment comes from Ian McEwen, the author of Atonement, he said
that Mark Haddon’s portrayal of an emotionally disassociated mind is a superb achievement. He also states that Mark Haddon is a wise and bleakly funny writer
with rare gift of empathy. The Washington Post Book World states that Mark Haddon is both clever and
observant, it makes the effect is vastly affecting. It can be seen from his novel which entitled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
C. Theoretical Framework
In analyzing the novel, some theories are applied. The theories are theory of character, theory of characterization, theory of critical approach, theory of
conflict, the theory of conflict resolution and the theory of autism. To analyze the first problem in this study, theory of character is applied. The
theory is used to help me to understand what kind of character Christopher is. Theories of major and minor characters are used to understand the character of
Christopher. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
