If he lived in today’s society, Thomas Jefferson, our third US President, author of the Declaration of Independence and considered by many to be a remarkable intellectual, would likely be diagnosed as an individual with Asperger syndrome, a neurological difference in some people.
Because Norm Ledgin is a historian who writes and lectures on history and also because he has a son diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, he observed characteristics and similarities in Jefferson’s personal life that coincided with the life of his own son. In all likelihood, if Mr. Ledgin’s son didn’t have the Asperger difference, he most likely would have passed off many of Jefferson’s “out-of-the-box” behaviors simply as odd or eccentric, as many others have. historians.
For readers unfamiliar with Asperger syndrome, Mr. Ledgin reprints the diagnostic criteria for Asperger syndrome from the 1994 Fourth Edition of the American Psychiatric Association and highlights the criteria that are associated with Jefferson. In his book, Diagnosing Jefferson, Ledgin lists more than fifty traits drawn from his own readings and from the writings of other biographers that, in all likelihood, place Jefferson on the autism / Asperger continuum. Norm Ledgin’s complete list includes physical characteristics, social characteristics, restricted interests, learning traits, and language use traits.
In each chapter of his book, Ledgin highlights a characteristic of Asperger that applies to Jefferson and gives examples from Jefferson’s life that fit that particular criterion. One of those chapters relates to Jefferson’s “uncompromising adherence to specific non-functional routines or rituals,” such as soaking his feet in cold water every morning, recording every “financial transaction to the last penny,” recording notes extensively, and “singing in low voice almost constantly. “
Ledgin writes of how various historians have described Jefferson’s outward behavior: his “relatively expressionless reserve, his conspicuous lack of” eye gaze, “his” elusiveness, “his” far-off “gaze. He claims that in his opinion, everything What you’ve read about Jefferson, the only word I’d use to describe Jefferson would be “reserved.”
Jefferson’s Diagnosis is a book that would be of interest to people dedicated to expanding their knowledge of the lives of United States presidents. It’s an in-depth look at Jefferson’s personal life and social behaviors in a previously unexplored way. It is well researched, referenced, and easy to read.
Jefferson Diagnosis by Norm Ledgin with Comments by Temple Grandin
Future Horizon, Inc., Arlington, Texas, 2000