Intuitive pathways of the autistic mind

Abstract When you enter in conversation with someone else, waiting for the answer takes a minimal amount of time that if exceeded creates some kind of embarrassment and hindrance. If a third subject is present, she/he will usually intervene either to remove the hindrance, or to solve the embarrassment. But when one subject exceeds systematically the minimal time for answering, she/he is bound to be diagnosed as autistic. Of course, there are other criteria, is not so simple, but if you read novels like Stephen Hero, by Joyce, you can get an idea about what Autism can be conceived from the point of view of literature. In the following work we will read back the main steps that made the autistic guys psychopathologic, with no hope, and the other gaze on Autism, which was always shaped by a kind of admiration in front of a ‘‘mysterious’’ form of existence.