book review

That subtype is basically: visual thinker, no learning disabilities, average to high IQ, mainstream education, fully verbal, no physical disabilities or conditions like epilepsy or cerebral palsy, and fixated on special interests with no general curiosity.

You can essentially look up information on subjects like anxiety, conversation, teasing, sarcasm, and courtesy.  Each has a short section (less than 5 pages) and comes with a \”See also:\” for related subjects.  There\’s a significant amount of repetition of concepts, since some subjects overlap in places.  The overall message is what\’s in the title: autistic people are different, but you shouldn\’t give up on us.  The book is meant to help you understand and give you immediate ideas of what to try.  Sound great, right?

Honestly?  I didn\’t really like this book.  It got a lot of things right, but in some cases it did so in the worst way possible.

For example, one of the early sections talks about meltdowns, and how they\’re different than tantrums.  The issue?  The book doesn\’t use the word meltdown.  It insists on giving you two different definitions of \”tantrum,\” and explaining the autistic meltdown in great depth but not using the obvious word for it.  The content is more or less accurate, in that meltdowns are not about control or getting what you want, but about being overwhelmed or overstimulated and not being able to handle it.  If there\’s a perfectly good word to distinguish a not-tantrum from a tantrum, I can\’t understand why you wouldn\’t use it.

I also didn\’t like the \”one size fits all\” stereotypes the book liked to trumpet.  The thing about autism is that it\’s a spectrum.  The well-worn saying is, \”If you\’ve met one person with autism, you\’ve met one person with autism.\” That includes the subset like myself who were given the label \”Asperger\’s Syndrome\” instead of \”autism\” or \”high functioning autism.\”  There are going to be differences, so saying \”all Aspies do this\” or \”all Aspies have this problem,\” or \”Aspies think like this\” is a massive red flag, and wrong to boot.

This book has tons of those massive red flags.  A personally irritating example is in the section about taking an interest in other people.  The book opines that autistic people are not interested in others, which is a problem because that behavior is expected.  It then says, \”Can we rewire the brain to insert an interest in people?  No, unfortunately, there is no way to hardwire in social thinking.\”  And then talks about how you can train autistic people to fake interest in others so the social expectation is fulfilled.

So, excuse me?  I\’m an autistic person with a general interest in everyone and everything, including other people.  I have had that interest since I was young, and have only gotten better at expressing it as I aged.  I wasn\’t aware that I apparently don\’t exist, thanks for that heads up (sarcasm).

Speaking of ways I don\’t exist, there were a couple mentions of gender talks and dating.  While I absolutely agree it\’s important to discuss these things, the assumption the book makes, that autistic children will be cisgender (either male OR female, both, transgender, or none of the above) and only care about straight dating (never mind all the gay and bi folks), is woefully shortsighted.  Autistic people often find ourselves in gender minorities.  I myself am agender, which puts me in the transgender category…  and apparently again, I don\’t exist.  Talk about LGBTQIA issues, for Pete\’s sake.  It is 2020 and sex and gender are way more complicated than, \”did you check what\’s in their pants?\”

And speaking of things that are outdated…  This whole book, while published in 2009, seems to be stuck in the 90s.  Paper and pencil solutions are stressed.  Phone skills and analog clock-reading skills are pointed out as important.  Look, I get that not every person has a smartphone, but these days, even under the poverty line, it\’s the vast majority.  Children these days are more likely to use a smartphone for organizational solutions, text far more than call, and use their cell phones for clocks rather than squint at a clock with hands.

There\’s a time and place for paper-and-pencil solutions, or whiteboards, or what have you.  But the issue of smartphones was basically entirely ignored throughout the book, and that strikes me as a staggering oversight.  Particularly when talking about bullying.  The book focuses only on in-person bullying, but cyberbullying is now quite common and badly needs addressing in great detail.

My last criticism is that the book seems steeped heavily in the ableist \”autism separate from child\” mentality.  The fallacy in Autism $peaks\’ publicity stuff is that the autism can somehow be peeled away from a person, \”freeing\” the normal human underneath, or some such nonsense.  This shows up in various points in the book, but the one that irked me enough to note it down was on page 163: \”Unlike more severe autism, Asperger\’s syndrome is surmountable to a degree.\”

Hi, it\’s me again, the twice-nonexistent autistic human!  My autism is not a chronic disease.  I have learned to function in your bullshit neurotypical society, but that does not mean I have somehow \”overcome\” my neurology.  I am still autistic, and I will still be autistic even if I solve all my health problems and function at my very best.  Please don\’t imply my existence is something to be \”surmounted,\” and if I just try hard enough I\’ll be \”normal.\”  Yikes.

This is probably the most blistering review I\’ve written and opted to publish, and I think the book bothered me because it got many things right but missed the mark in so many important ways.  The authors spent hundreds of hours around autistic kids, but it\’s like they never spoke to autistic adults or even heard of neurodiversity at all.  I hate to belabor the obvious, but like… maybe do that before you publish your book next time?

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Jennifer O\’Toole is a lot of things, as a person, and this book is a look into many of them.  It was also painfully familiar to me in a lot of ways.  The difference is that her story is moreso than mine; she reached more tremendous highs and plummeted to significantly more painful depths.

A major difference here is that while the author embraced her femininity, using it as a pattern and a framework with which to understand her life and self, I ignored mine until I found a word that actually does describe my gender: agender.  Effectively, I would most prefer you leave your gender expectations at the door when meeting and interacting with me.  I am not masculine, or feminine, or both.  I am \”no thank you.\”

I was fortunate enough to be born to parents who allowed me to be myself, even if \”myself\” was painfully unfashionable and insisted on wearing sweatpants into high school.  Because my parents didn\’t actively enforce gender roles, I was able to grow without pretzeling myself into stereotypes I hated, or dealing too much with dresses, skirts, high-heeled shoes, and a million fiddly accessories which only lend themselves to accentuating the fact that that women are reduced to the attractiveness of their bodies.

A lot of autistic people find themselves in the gender minority camp, apparently.  But we live in a world where gender roles and stereotypes are still very much in effect.  And of course, as the book points out, many autistic people are born genetically female and not recognized as autistic.  So a book like this is exceedingly valuable, because in Jennifer\’s experience being autistic and female, we can find echoes of our own lived experience.  And not only that, but she also points out her pitfalls and failings honestly, which allows us a better chance to avoid those pitfalls.

I found this a difficult book to read.  Not because of the writing style, which was quite easy to read.  Not because of the length, which was less than 300 pages.  It was the subject material, which often struck very painfully close to home.  The question of, \”how can I be so smart and still feel so stupid?\” is all too real to me.

\”Spiky skills\” is sometimes how this phenomenon is phrased, where the person has great strengths in some developmental areas and skills, but in others, barely scrapes by.  In autistic people, the obvious example is being a trivia god/goddess (whether that trivia is trains, edible plants, or classical literature), but never knowing what to say when someone is upset, or even what upset them in the first place.

The author focused less on the social difficulties, and more on Executive Functioning difficulties.  Charmingly, she does so by starting with Santa.  I especially recommend reading this section.  It\’s shockingly easy to read for a lesson on brain science, first and foremost, but also because Executive Function isn\’t well understood despite being incredibly important to understanding autism.  There\’s a lot to unpack and understand about it, and doing so can help you understand your autistic loved ones better.

I honestly don\’t believe I\’ve read a clearer, more approachable description of Executive Function anywhere, ever.  So while I strongly recommend the entire book, I wish that particular section was required reading for every autism-related professional, and given to every parent and newly-diagnosed autistic person.

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This is a book that covers more than autism, but as most parents with autistic loved ones know, you don\’t usually just get \”autism and no other problems.\”  There\’s usually gasto-intestinal issues, food allergies, intolerance of food dyes, and sleep difficulties.  This book covers all of those things.  The title is a bit deceptive, in that the author doesn\’t necessarily think it\’s reasonable for every child to cut pharmaceuticals out of their lives. 

However, what she does say is that many conditions which are typically treated with pharmaceuticals, like depression, inability to focus, hyperactivity, and digestive issues… can be treated more effectively with better nutrition and possibly dietary changes.  Instead of treating the symptoms, you can eliminate the cause of the problem itself, which might be something like a zinc deficiency or magnesium deficiency.  The end result, naturally, is a happier, healthier child.

I personally suffered from both of those deficiencies, and it seems I also have some form of allergy to dairy.  And possibly gluten, but I\’m studiously ignoring that right now because the idea of trying to go gluten-free is painful to contemplate.  As I understand it, this is a common dread for parents of autistic people.  Good news!  This book has resources to help. 

Actually, on the subject of nutrition and food allergies, this book has something I\’ve never seen anywhere else: DIY infant formula.  Babies can be allergic to foods, and if the mother eats those foods or the infant formula contains them, the baby can suffer those allergies.  But because they\’re babies, they can\’t really communicate the specifics of their distress.  My spouse\’s mother eventually had to cut cow milk and dairy out of her diet when breast-feeding him, because he was apparently lactose intolerant from birth.

While removing cow dairy from a diet might be complicated, at least it was just one factor.  For some people on the autism spectrum, it\’s more than one thing.  The author talks about her struggles with feeding her son, who had a lot of food allergies and eventually, despite all her efforts, could not be breast-fed.  The authors talks about how to test for these sorts of things in children of all ages, as well as reasonable coping strategies for managing meals.

I say \”reasonable\” because high-needs people can test positive for allergies to dozens of foods, and trying to cut all of those foods out of a diet is exhausting at best.  The author quite rightly points out that it can also lead to malnutrition.  So she suggests (repeated throughout the book, so as to really get the point across) that you should get the tests done, and then choose the 2-4 strongest reactions to eliminate from the person\’s diet.  The rest should be cycled, or eaten sparingly once or twice a week.  This method limits the amount of exhaustion a parent faces when trying to provide meals and appropriate nutrition for their loved one.

The book also discusses specific supplements, from fish oil to amino acids to brain chemicals like GABA.  There were things I\’d heard of, like magnesium and zinc, and things I hadn\’t, like tyrosine and glutathione.  Each comes with the sort of educated advice and symptoms list you would expect when visiting a specialist doctor… which is the author\’s credentials, of course.  It\’s just usual to have put into a book, when this advice will typically run you hundreds to thousands of dollars. 

Naturally, you shouldn\’t simply pick up this book and try the things in it without any form of professional guidance.  While I found this book astonishingly accessible and thorough about its information, there\’s always interactions between pharmaceuticals and supplements.  Some of those are covered in this book, but for your loved one\’s safety, consult a trained professional before adding things. 

Overall, this was an excellent read.  High quality information, significant but not overwhelming resources, written in an accessible-to-all style.  While I don\’t agree with absolutely every recommendation in the book, the author seems quite knowledgeable and in-tune with this subject.  I might consider buying a copy of this book and having it on hand to give to parents who come to the parent support group.  The kinds of symptoms they complain about, including unusual things like the \”white diet\” where the child will only eat milk, cheese, pasta, etc, are addressed in these pages.

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I\’m typically cautious to the point of pessimistic skepticism when reading about specific therapies and how they\’re supposed to \”improve\” autistic people.  This is possibly because Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) is the biggest of these therapies, and it is all-too-often abusive.  But I\’d heard good things about the Floortime method, so despite this book being 400+ pages, I gave it a read.

I was not disappointed.  While the book is dense and not written in a way that\’s easily accessible to a frazzled parent, the approach it\’s trying to communicate is excellent.

Unlike ABA, which typically just tries to elbow autistic people into \”normal behavior\” via bribery, Floortime instructs parents and caregivers to enter the autistic person\’s world.  Instead of invalidating our experiences and existences in pursuit of some imagined norm, the aim is to develop connection, warmth, stability, and then, communication and reasoning skills.

Floortime recognizes the autistic person as a person.  Perhaps a person with difficulties, sensory or biological or emotional, but a person deserving of kindness, care, and attention.  A person with autonomy and feelings, regardless of what level of apparent functioning they\’ve reached.

Floortime also refuses to assume a limit on how far an autistic person can develop.  It lays out the developmental steps for communication and reasoning, but then says on page 125: \”Never assume a ceiling on a child\’s abilities.  Always assume you can get to one more level, and after that, one more level.\”

The writers are aware that people may have limits, and may only be able to develop to a certain point, but they prefer to err on the side of assuming competence and assuming potential rather than possibly limit a person\’s growth and development.  Since that kind of assumed limitation is so common and crippling, and people with limited speech are so typically ignored, this philosophy is what all people should strive for.

It doesn\’t pretend the process will be easy, nor does it ignore biological, sensory, and processing differences.  These have their own chapters devoted to them, and while I could wish for much more to be said on the subject, it\’s a bit outside the scope of the book.

I can\’t stress enough how unusual Floortime\’s philosophy is.  Or how badly it\’s needed.  This is the therapy that should have been subsidized by insurance companies, not ABA.  Rather than teaching robotic compliance, it teaches proactive communication, self-regulation, and connection.  It recognizes that humans, all humans, are social and desire positive relationships with others.

It makes me wish, in all honesty, I\’d had the opportunity to benefit from this therapy.  As an autistic adult who is markedly leery about behavioral therapies, that\’s probably the highest compliment I can give.

I could probably continue showering Floortime and its creators in compliments and appreciation for some time, but there are some other things that should be said.

First, Floortime is not a \”follow directions, receive child with improved functioning\” sort of deal.  It\’s a significantly effortful, complicated, time-intensive method, which is why it took them 400 pages or so to explain it.  It requires you spend at least 15 minutes per session with the autistic person, and suggests 8 sessions a day.  As such, it is not a therapy that is easily practicable by every parent in the current world.  Single parents, or even two parents near or under the poverty line, may have difficulty finding the time and energy for the sessions.

The authors specifically state that interventions and therapy need to be built on a stable base: a healthy, safe environment with adequate food, shelter, and medical care (pg. 255).  In an ideal world, that would be true of every family.  In reality, it is not.

Money worries can strain spouse relationships, and communication issues may exist beyond the actual autistic person.  Family relationships in a household with an autistic person can be significantly unhealthy.  If the autistic person is to develop in a healthy way, family counseling may be required.  And of course, not all families can afford counseling.

Second, this book is not the most approachable for a busy parent.  The style of writing seems more akin to scientific writing than it does to plainspeak.  The word choice isn\’t overly elaborate, thankfully, but I found the writing dense and difficult to digest in large chunks.  The authors do not get to the point quickly or efficiently.  This is maybe understandable since they\’re trying to convey a philosophy and a state of mind, rather than simple facts or bullet points.

Finally, like basically every other \”here\’s this method to help autistic people!\” guide, this book is geared towards helping children.  Most references in the book speak about developmental levels and abilities typically involved in childhood, and the book stresses beginning Floortime as soon as possible.

However, Floortime can also be used with adults, and chapters 17 and 18 specifically talk about how that can be done.  They also share the results of a few cases where it has been done, and the positive results that followed.  So while I\’d personally appreciate more emphasis on it never being too late to start, the authors didn\’t entirely miss this point.

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The typical story that comes up in the parent support group I attend is a \”failure to launch\” type story.  The child has some disability, but could probably live independently or elsewhere, with some supports.  Due to numerous setbacks and the utter inability of minimum wage to support that lifestyle, though, these people are typically living at home with their parents, and have no plans to move out.  They may even feel like they\’re incapable of managing life on their own, and expect their parents to handle that aspect of their lives forever.

Of course, no parent lives forever.  Nor does every parent feel okay with this lack of boundaries and the child\’s lack of independence.  So while some of these parents let the situation slide for decades, eventually it all ends the same place: \”we can\’t do this any more.\”  Efforts might be made to nudge the child onward towards making a life for themself, but depending on how things have gone, it can be an uphill battle.

Hence, this book.  Its information is backed up with real stories from autistic young adults, their parents, and their friends/support staff/professionals.

In reading this book, I suspect that most of the information presented is useful for any kind of kid (or adult child, as some people call grown children that still rely on their parents).

• Neurotypical children may not have singular special interests that they\’re intensely focused on, but if you want to teach effectively or motivate someone, you still incorporate the things they\’re interested in.  
• Neurodiverse children of all kinds may run into similar barriers, such as repeated rejections, learned helplessness, depression, anxiety, and addiction.  
• Perfectionism and addiction (regardless of what kind it is) are poisonous to learning and growing, regardless of your neurology.  Autistic people may be more prone to Internet/gaming addiction than most, but there are many kinds of addiction, including TV, drugs, and codependency (always sacrificing your own health and wellbeing to help others.)  
• Responsibility, chores, and life skills like cooking, cleaning, and laundry are important for all humans, regardless of IQ, neurology, etc.  While a person confined to a wheelchair or mobility device may not be able to reach the high cabinets, they can still learn to cook or garden or do laundry if given the right tools and teaching methods. 

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While autism is only mentioned in passing here and there in the chapters, it\’s been noted that autistic people function as the \”canary in the coal mine\” in terms of problems… in short, we\’re the first to suffer when things are systemically wrong, and we tend to suffer more than most people do.  Alternative lifestyles are much more commonplace in the autism community, including the very common dairy-free/gluten-free restriction which has helped so many of us thrive, rather than simply survive.

There are seven points of change or improvement that they address, as well as some failings of modern life and what the human lifestyle used to be like.  For each of his points (obvious things like sleep and food, but also a section on tribe/sociability and your central nervous system), they back up the ideas with references to research as well as personal stories.  I say references because the actual citations are not in evidence.  Not even at the end of the book in the horrifying mishmash of fine text that usually accompanies such things. 

This lack of citations is a little concerning, but I feel that to most readers, it doesn\’t make that much of a difference whether the citations are there or not.  Few people have time and inclination to hunt down every cited reference to be very sure it\’s accurate and appropriate to the text.  I\’d personally be happier with the references at the end, but there is enough information in each chapter to look up the scientists or research in question.  Assuming a certain level of Google-fu (know-how with a search engine), I guess. 

The ideas in the book flowed fairly logically, given the evidence presented and my own experiences with the various topics.  Mostly, the thoughts put forth were expansions of stuff my doctor has already been telling me, though a bit more explicit or more thoroughly described.  There were a couple surprises, such as the section that covers (but is definitely not limited to) meditation, and parts of the section on food.  There were also some interesting thoughts about cancer and asthma in the chapter on civilization and its results.

If anyone was wondering, no, this book does not tell you to quit your life, go into some extremely rural area, and live off the grid.  The authors aren\’t so obtuse as to think that\’s reasonable for their readers.  They do suggest basic changes in the modern lifestyle that, while difficult in some cases, are doable.  And if they work as advertised, definitely worth the effort. 

The authors are also smart enough to realize that lives are highly individualized.  Thus, in the final chapter they give you a framework with which to start your journey towards a happier, healthier you, but don\’t give you precise numbers, specific exercises, or a list of meals you can or can\’t have.  They give you basic suggestions, which you can use to try things and find what works for you.

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You\’re someone looking for better wellness for yourself or your loved ones.  This is a great read for the new year, honestly.  It\’s particularly relevant for those of us with less stable bodies and minds (like myself), whether that\’s autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety disorders, or something else entirely.  I\’m fairly certain neurotypical and mostly-healthy people will also find food for thought in these pages.  

This is a lengthy-feeling book, and it\’s not written for a general audience. Instead, it\’s written for fellow academics and professionals… which is to say, the whole book is one giant textwall, with chapters.  So while the knowledge in this book is valuable, I can\’t actually recommend it for general reading.  Instead, I\’ll do my best to lay out what subjects are covered in the book, and you can, if you wish, buy the book or borrow it from the local library and read the relevant sections.

So first, the book talks about students and learning.  There\’s a school in Illinois that has implemented exercise every day before classes, which set off the \”spark\” the book is named for.  The result was healthier students, feeling better about themselves, and most relevantly to the school system: improved grades.  The author talks about chemicals that are released when your heartrate is elevated and your muscles are working. 

Then he talks about stress, and how a little stress is good but too much is bad, and the specifics of those mechanics.  Then the book continues on to a section on anxiety, and some of the doctor\’s work with clients suffering anxiety, and how movement can reduce or replace the need for medicine.  Same with the section on depression, except that he doesn\’t recommend replacing your medication, but supplementing it with exercise. 

After these, the book moves onto conditions one might not otherwise associate exercise with.  There\’s a section for ADHD, and the author notes that he himself has ADHD and marks some personal experiences he\’s had regarding that and movement.  Then the next section is on addiction, and the next on hormones, and finally, aging. 

He ends the book with some general recommendations for brain and body health, noting that there is no \”one true exercise plan for brain and body health\” for all people that might ever want to benefit from this knowledge.  Your age, type of exercise activities preferred, mental health, and other challenges are relevant when developing a plan for yourself. 

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That said, some of the advice given here was broadly applicable regardless of the partnership composition.  There are certain tendencies addressed in this book that often apply to autistic people.  In many cases, these were exaggerated version of traits I sometimes display myself but could clearly see why they were painful to the neurotypical spouse or partner.  This similarity made the book rather painful for me personally to read, but I expect it would be rather enlightening for people who don\’t have an innate understanding of these behaviors.

Included sections are things like differences in communication, social skills, executive function, sensory processing issues, how to cope with stress, parenting, and common situations a NT spouse may find themselves in.  All included sections seemed highly relevant to the book\’s overall message.  The authors even attempted to give the book some balance by including a \”positives and negatives\” chapter about autistic traits.

I appreciated this effort to present the strengths an autistic partner can bring to a relationship, but I feel that overall the book focused intently on our deficiencies.  I felt rather sad and like I\’m a broken human as I read the book, matching some of my tendencies to the stories of dysfunction in various real and fictitious relationships described in the book.

I feel like this wasn\’t really the authors\’ intent, and it\’s possible I\’m being oversensitive on the subject.  After all, this is a book to help NT partners handle communication breakdowns and manage living with someone very different than oneself… it\’s not a book celebrating fully functional relationships that have few problems.

My sadness aside, the book had valuable (if rather brief) information on all the subjects it addressed.  I would suggest this as a starting point for a partner, and then to follow up on specific questions and subjects.  Like, if the autistic partner has severe rigidity, there might be specialized resources for that.  Or they might have touch sensitivity but not visual or sound sensitivity, so you might look into a book or expert who knows a lot about that subject.

The last thing that struck me about this book is that it strongly recommends finding three therapists: one for the autistic partner, one for the NT partner, and a relationship counselor for the relationship or marriage.  The authors also caution the NT partner to find a therapist that understands autism, because otherwise their concerns may be waved away as being a worry-wort or being overbearing.  I have no personal experience on the matter, but I can definitely see something like this happening, and I wouldn\’t wish it on anyone.

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Dr. Grandin is a voracious reader and a scientist, so she\’s kept abreast of research as it\’s developed over time.  Fortunately for parents and non-scientists everywhere, she\’s been able to write in terms that laypeople can understand.  Rather than make her readers sort through overcomplicated word choice, abundant acronyms, and obfuscation of ideas, she simply outlines the major research focuses, discusses them, and then discusses the \”what next.\”

This is a two part book: past thinking and research is part 1.  It began with a summary of the history of autism, followed by a section on brain scans, then genetics and DNA, and then sensory sensitivities.  Each subject is discussed in enough detail to give you a clear picture of what\’s happened in that area.

The second half the book is more philosophy and building on the past research and ideas.  It\’s the \”now what?\” that followed the \”where we\’ve been.\”  Again, all of this is quite approachable and readable for a layperson, which I\’m particularly appreciating after having to read so many words in scientific writing style.

The most notable section to me in this book was near the end, where Grandin discusses autistic thinking and strengths.  In a past book, she theorized that autistic people think in pictures.  She herself does that, after all.  The thing is, I don\’t.  At least, I mostly don\’t.

I think in some absurd combination of concepts, music, flavors, pictures, patterns, and words.  Grandin revisits this idea in this book, and corrects her initial assumption.  She now theorizes at least three types of thinkers.  While I still don\’t think I\’m any of these theorized thinker types, I appreciate that she\’s willing to correct her mistake and rethink her ideas.

Mind you, I still think she has a ways to go, but in truth, I\’m not sure I\’d do much better in her place.

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