Literature as a Tool for Understanding and Supporting Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome

Abstract

The article discusses three contemporary texts representing different genres: a children’s story (Alien by Roksana Jędrzejewska-Wróbel), an autobiographical novel (Sugars by Dorota Kotas), and a picture book (I Have Asperger’s Syndrome. A Handbook for Students and Teachers by Karolina Dyrda and Jolka Rosińska). All of them address the issue of Asperger’s syndrome, a neurological disorder within the autism spectrum, fulfilling an important social and educational goal: promoting greater awareness and knowledge about autism to enable better understanding, support, and integration of neurodiverse individuals in various environments, including schools. Each of the works presented in the article can be successfully used in education at different levels as supplementary reading, both in Polish language classes and homeroom lessons. The article also proposes sample activities for Polish teachers who decide to incorporate the texts by Jędrzejewska-Wróbel, Kotas, Dyrda, and Rosińska into contemporary school curricula.