In Journey to Babel, the episode where Sarek is first introduced, we learn that he taught Spock how to program computers. I find this very funny, because it absolutely can read as a euphemism for paternally inherited autism. 'Oh, his father taught him computer programming.' This isn't my main point, I just think it's funny.
My main point is this: The Vulcan Academy Murders has the best depiction I've ever read of an autistic meltdown not in a story explicitly about autism. It happens to Sarek.
It's an unapologetic depiction of - okay, theoretically it's implied the source of his distress is partially supernatural/SFF stuff, but - his response to it is such a good, realistic portrayal of a "violent, scary" autistic meltdown that the reader is meant to regard as entirely sympathetic, if not heroic. And the meltdown isn't really written as "look what mr stringent pacifist does when pushed," either, - it's very much a "this is a natural aspect of who he is that doesn't contradict other aspects." And it's not written as shameful or even embarrassing! It's written as his friends, family, and even acquaintances accept this an understandable response to a family emergency and they do what they can to resolve the situation for him and with him. Some of his students with a similar neurotype to him (two Vulcan students) work out what's happening and immediately run to help him, decorum be damned.
The meltdown is as follows:
During a lesson, he begins to feel that something is wrong. He stumbles over his words and trails off, then finds them again. Two of his Vulcan students rush forward to support him, as "the dislocated fear clutching at his mind overshadowed everything else". He shakes them off and runs "through halls, out into blazing sunlight, and into endless corridors, running blindly in a physical world which seemed to have no connection to the world in his mind". He sees people he knows, but he can't remember their names. He manages to speak two words, "speech feeling alien against the inner world in which he struggled." At this point, his friend and Spock are both there, and he realises Spock is family but also doesn't identify him as specifically Spock. He throws himself at a reinforced door and breaks through it, throws himself at a ray shield and bounces off, forgets passwords. He lashes out at Spock and his friend when they first try to help him. Eventually, he comes to, burying his face in his wife's hair. Later, he doesn't remember breaking through the door, and Spock tells him what happened.
Genuinely thematically hampered by the background/middle-ground heterosexual pairings. The central theme of atypical relationships which are accepted by loving family but not by some few very conservative relatives would have made so much more sense if at least the two doctors had been allowed to be gay.
Also, Jim was sleeping in Spock's bedroom and Spock asked Sarek about what it's like to be married to a human. Which could mean nothing.
It's a very sweet heartfelt book when it isn't being uncomfortable heterosexual (of this Sarek and Amanda are absolved. Not you, dears. You're doing amazing.)
Despite the raft of content notes I added, my general impression of the book is 'cute and cosy'.
CONTENT NOTES
Graphic: Medical content
Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Ableism, Hate crime, Self harm, Religious bigotry, Death of parent