book review

Understanding Autism for Dummies, by Stephen Shore and Linda Rastelli, is one of those yellow subject-based \”For Dummies\” books that I silently promised myself never to pick up when I was younger.  I always found the branding rather insulting, regardless of how little I knew about a subject.

So naturally now you\’re likely wondering why on Earth I broke this promise to myself.  Well… the first author is the reason.  Stephen Shore is an author I\’ve run into briefly on my adventure through autism literature, and I\’ve never read one of his specific works.  However, even the brief exposure I\’ve had to his philosophy and work has impressed me.  So when this book came up on a search of my library, I reluctantly checked it out.

Upon actually opening the book, I was promptly flabbergasted by the first page, which was a two-sided mini-reference page.  There was lots of good info on there in little boxes, but I was most grabbed by the \”Emergency ID card\” for autism.  The print was maybe a little small to be handing to an upset police officer, but it did have a space for emergency contact numbers. Also important information about autism, like common behaviors.  \”I may: have difficulty speaking, appear deaf, not understand legal issues.\” And suggested things to do, like \”speaking slowly and softly,\” \”giving me time to respond,\” and \”warning me first if you must touch me.\” 

I\’m not sure how I feel about carrying a card identifying me as autistic, but of course, I\’m not who the card was designed for.  Usually in emergencies, I can still communicate in words.  This book is meant to be a comprehensive reference for the entire autism spectrum, despite being co-authored by a relatively well-blended (\”high-functioning\”) autistic person.

Once I got past the first page and got to the table of contents, I was struck by the fact that this book is over 10 years old, but had a lot of \”thinking about the future\” sections.  Important things like \”how to transition from high school to jobs,\” \”how to make friends after school is over,\” and \”options for financial planning.\”  In reading through those sections much later, I was pleased to see advice for both the autistic person, and for parents and guardians.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find a subsection on sexual relationships and sex education.  It was fairly short, but had some solid suggestions, and included a brief commentary on sensory issues.  At some point I\’ll be less reserved about my personal sex life, but suffice it to say that sensory issues do not politely go away just because you\’re trying to be intimate with someone.

Relatedly, I was also pleased to see the book strongly suggest sex education for all individuals on the autism spectrum, not just the ones likely to find a partner.  The authors adamantly proclaim that almost all autistic individuals, no matter how well they blend into society, have a sex drive.  So you need to teach appropriate behavior to deal with that, and sooner rather than later.

In addition to these things, of course, the book also covers the \”what is autism,\” \”getting a diagnosis,\” \”how to choose treatments and therapies,\” and \”how to work with schools to get appropriate education.\”  Each of those is a wide subject, and each chapter has a few books listed as recommended reading.  I was reasonably impressed with the section on working with schools, which included best practices for IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meetings.  I\’ve attended several informational meetings regarding how best to make and IEP and communicate with the schools, and it pleased me to see much of that advice here.

The book is still ten years old, naturally, so its explanation of autism and understanding of the special diet aspect of improving symptoms is minimal.  But it does bother to have a section for that treatment at all, which makes it ahead of its time in some ways.  Unfortunately, I can\’t say the same for the list of resources at the back of the book.  About half the resources in the sections I looked into were no longer operational, missing, or had been moved.  That\’s maybe not surprising, given how things change.

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Drawing Autism, by Jill Mullin, with a foreword by Temple Grandin, is a book full of art made by autistic people. 

I\’ve seen several books that featured photos of families with autism, and one book that specifically focused on the pictures, and had accompanying text.  But I had not, until picking up this book, seen an art book that specifically focused on showcasing art made by autistic creators. 

Now, anyone who knows me in real life also tends to know that I am very much not an artsy person.  My drawing skill is \”passable for an average middle schooler\” and everything goes downhill from there.  I also have a distinct lack of patience for most visual art, which made me a great annoyance to my parents when they tried to visit art museums.  I got bored very quickly, and instead of looking at the art, I\’d read my book and/or whine until we left. 

It\’s academic as to why that was the case when I was little.  It could have been a short attention span, low tolerance for things I didn\’t care about, or something else entirely.  But one explanation for the present state of things might be that it\’s visually overwhelming to look at artwork, just as it\’s visually overwhelming to look people in the eyes, and at peoples\’ faces, and I haven\’t the patience to bother with it most times.  It\’s a real shame eye contact is required for regular social interaction…

Anyway, this is relevant to this book, because the vast majority of this book is art.  I had to make a great effort to examine each piece in the book.  The kinds of art vary widely, as there are literally dozens of artists represented here.  There are pieces that I could\’ve drawn in elementary school, and pieces I will literally never be able to replicate if my life depended on it.  The styles of art include whimsical 3D models, near-photographic renditions of natural landscapes, comic strips, and dizzyingly Picasso-like works. 

Accompanying each piece is some information about the artwork or the artist, as it was available.  Not all of these artists are verbal, so sometimes the caregivers answered for the artist.  I found it interesting to read these things and try to get a sense for each artist\’s mentality and life.  Really, though, those bits of information are the sideshow to the art. 

This is mostly not my kind of book, but it was an interesting experience, and for anyone that appreciates art, probably a valuable addition to your journey in learning about autism.

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The Best Kind of Different: Our Family’s Journey with Asperger\’s Syndrome, by Shonda Schilling (with an introduction written by Curt Schilling).As the title says, this is a “my family and autism” story.  What the title doesn’t clue you into is that this is a “sports star dad” story, similar to Not My Boy!  I’m never quite sure, reading these kinds of books, whether to envy or pity the autistic child in question.  Because yes, the child never needs to worry about food or shelter or schooling or medical treatment being unavailable.  But the thing about professional sports is that they basically eat your life for months out of the year.  This book, written by the wife of the sports star (Curt Shilling, for anyone not familiar, pitched for the Boston Red Sox), gives a better picture of exactly how out-of-the-picture the dad can be.

It’s honestly to the point where the home in question is all but a one-parent home for most of the year.  That’s brutal for the remaining parent, and also bad for the kids.  On top of that, though, professional sports players tend to move around a lot.  I don’t think I’ve detailed exactly how detrimental it was to my social life and connections when my parents moved.  And naturally, given how the business world was, we moved three times during my childhood.  I didn’t quite count up how many times this family moved, but even once destroys your social connections and automatically relegates you to “permanent outsider” in the school pecking order.  I made that work for me when I could, and suffered it when I couldn’t.  I suffered far more than I benefited.

Perhaps a somewhat mitigating factor for this autistic kid was that he had siblings relatively close in age range.  He may not have been able to take his friends with him to his new schools, but at least he kept his siblings.  Siblings can support each other sometimes, since they go through the same things.  I lacked that when I was growing up, unfortunately.  It’s not that my brother didn’t care; he absolutely did.  It’s that he was nearly six years older than me.  We had few common interests and even less shared perspective.  He could conceive of the future while I was still figuring out how to conceive of the past.  Also, he likes tactical games, and I have no patience or focus for those.

At least my personal history and worst childhood moments aren’t recorded in a book for thousands of strangers to read…  I recognize that the younger generations are more accustomed to having no privacy, their every moment documented with photos, blog posts, and tweets, and all of it traceable back years and years on the Internet… but I shudder to imagine that being the case for me.  Bad enough I had to live all those moments and remember some of them, far worse to have all of them on record so people can know all the trying and difficult things I’ve done in my life.

My last thought on this book is that the narrative stops before the autistic kid hits his teenage years, on a happy-ish note.  Which is just adorable to me because that is naturally when things tend to go horribly trying again for a half decade or so.  It makes it a very incomplete story to me, and not at all the end of a “family journey” as the title puts it.  The only complete bit about it to me is that the dad finally retires from baseball and comes home to help with the kids, so the family is then complete.

Just in time, as far as my experience tells me.  This book was published in 2010, so here’s hoping the author and her spouse braved the trials of having four teenagers (one of which is autistic) with grace and patience.  I wasn’t able to locate any further books regarding the family’s status, beyond a brief article about one of the older brothers.

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The Prodigy\’s Cousin: The Family Link Between Autism and Extraordinary Talent, by Joanne Ruthsatz and Kimberly Stephens.

Somewhat of a departure from my usual fare, but definitely an interesting read, this book explores the idea that child prodigies and autism are linked, and perhaps even two facets of the same phenomenon.  The focus of the book is very much on the child prodigies, rather than also interviewing autistic individuals with special interests (or \”enthusiasms\” if you prefer).  But that\’s the initial bridge between autism and prodigies: the single-minded focus on a subject that allows them to excel.  In autism, that\’s specifically called a special interest, and I hear parents consider it as much a hindrance as they do a help.  In prodigies, that\’s their gift, and it\’s viewed much more positively.

The book\’s focus makes their group of study very, very small.  There aren\’t that many known child prodigies.  In fact, this book follows only 11.  I say \”only,\” because while that\’s a lot of people for a single book, it\’s a pitifully small sample size for any kind of scientific experiment or study.  The authors don\’t deny this, pointing it out themselves several times.

They systematically investigate their claim, using the information they have at hand.  This includes facing down the notion that autistic people are devoid of empathy.  Gentle reader, I hope you\’re rolling your eyes with me about this theory.  But if you\’re not, and my blog hasn\’t made it abundantly clear…  I have empathy.  I have a lot of it.  I have theory of mind, and it annoys the tar out of me when people look at me like I\’m a broken and potentially dangerous subhuman creature.  Sometimes, it really begs the question of who should be investigated for lack of empathy…

My kvetching aside, these authors push the Intense World theory, or the theory that autistic people do not lack empathy, but instead have too much of it, and other senses.  The world is too loud, too bright, too fast, and overwhelmingly emotional, hence \”Intense World.\”  Some of this can be blamed on sensory processing disorders… but I also read somewhere that outcasts and people who don\’t fit in very well tend to have more empathy than people that do fit in.  And that can make other peoples\’ emotions overwhelming.  You\’d want to hide in your room all day too, if you had to suffer your emotions on 100x magnification and others\’ emotions too.

The Intense World theory, then, hypothesizes that autistic people are overwhelmed by all the light and sound and emotional fury, and to stay sane and regulated, we withdraw from life and shut down.  I find this highly accurate.  While I\’m partly shielded by my incredible lack of visual processing efficiency, I find others\’ emotions very trying and difficult, never mind my own.

An example would be a funeral I went to relatively recently.  It was for Chris\’ grandmother, a lady I\’d met perhaps five times in the entirety of my life.  She was very gracious to me and gave me a very nice pair of slipper-socks, and she liked tea.  And that sentence describes pretty much everything I knew about her going into that funeral.  So not exactly a strong emotional connection.  I went to the funeral to support Chris, and especially his mother and the family.  It was a nice service, which I spent sitting quietly and listening to the proceedings… until the Family Remembrances section came up.  Most of her surviving children had a turn at the microphone, and while only one of them was having to talk through tears the entire time, I basically just sat there and sprouted tears and boogers because of all the pain I was hearing.  I literally cried my way through all but maybe 5 minutes of the family remembrances section.

I was, suffice it to say, mortified.  Other than the people speaking at the microphone and the daughter closest to the deceased grandmother, no one near me was crying very hard.  Except me.  I commented later, sheepishly, that sometimes having autism is like having no skin.  I have no real ability to shut out or filter other peoples\’ pain in situations like that, so I just suffer and feel awkward and bad while I do it.  But sure, people, you go ahead and believe I don\’t have empathy.

Speaking of me being crabbity, this book also kind of grumped me out.  I\’ve not seen the statistics, but a percentage of people on the autism spectrum do not have a special interest or drive to master a particular subject.  I am one of those people.  I have skills and talents, yes, but nothing singular that I truly excel at.  In this age of uncertainty, where people can and do search for years for a job they can enjoy and make living with… it\’s envy-inducing to know that people like me discover a true and abiding calling in their lives.  At least at the time, they seem to have few doubts about the trueness of that calling, and if they\’re young enough, the unusualness of it is enough to bring the money and publicity out of the woodwork.  And in all prodigy stories listed here, that was very much the case.

The rest of us, myself included, have no such luck and have to find what things we like and can tolerate slowly, painfully, and sometimes even unsuccessfully.  The idea that I might\’ve been a few genes off from early artistic greatness, or scientific excellence, or something similar, and not have had to spend a decade or more trying to figure out what I\’m good at and like doing… is really frustrating.

My last side comment on this book is in reference to another oddity of prodigy children, and a supposed difference between them and autistic people.  The book terms it \”the mystery of prodigy benevolence,\” referring to the tendency of child prodigies to work on the behalf of others, even non-family, using their talents and networking capabilities.

I don\’t find this phenomenon particularly mysterious.  Child prodigies are children.  They\’ve found something they truly love doing, which is then, in these stories, supported and praised by their families and those they love.  When money and praise starts rolling in, they\’re still kids.  They haven\’t necessarily been introduced to the fear-frenzied demon called greed, and their own needs are satisfied.  So why not help others?  It seems simple enough to me.

Someone once said: the grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.  They have something to do (their fields of study), something to love (their families, friends, their work), and something to hope for (advancement in their field of study, the ability to meet more people, growing up, etc).  Is it really so surprising to people that these children display such benevolence?

Anyway, in the end, the book doesn\’t make a definitive link between autism and child prodigies.  It does paint a compelling picture, though, and if the 42 page long list of references is anything to go by, a reasonably well-cited one.  If nothing else, it\’s an interesting take on autism and its potential benefits.

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Take Control of Asperger\’s Syndrome: The Official Strategy Guide for Teens With Asperger\’s Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disorder, by Janet Price and Jennifer Engel Fisher.

In an effort to cater to its audience, this self-help book is modeled on the concept of video game strategy guides.

The cover kind of manages the resemblance, and so does the \”Contents\” page that lists the chapters and the contents, but there is where the similarity ends.  The actual meat and bones of the book is not organized in any sort of reasonable \”game-ify your life\” fashion, sans the very last chapter.  Instead, it reads similarly to most other books on the subject, including the ever-tiresome \”What is Autism\” section.  I\’ll admit, I haven\’t been a teenager for an entire decade, but I found it difficult to expect the superficialness of the format to appeal to that demographic.  I defer to any teenagers that care to offer an opinion, however.

A good thing going for this book is that it\’s very positive.  It acknowledges the challenges that autism (or Asperger\’s Syndrome or NLD) presents, but doesn\’t guilt you about it or pity you.  Instead, it preaches and teaches self-advocacy and some of the tenets of neurodiversity.  This is admirable.  I do think the book falls into one of the common pitfalls of such books: focusing very hard on making up for weaknesses, and paying the bare minimum attention to the person\’s strengths.  The book does try to teach you some strengths: self-advocacy and the ability to tell people what you need and how you work is important.

A humorous (to me) point of the book was its assistive technology section.  This book was published in 2010, nine years after iPods became a thing, and… I don\’t know, at least five years after almost everyone younger than 20 started having cell phones.  This book… recommends technology like address books, timers, spell checkers… in separate devices.  I actually had one of the devices it recommends, a Spelling Ace, back in middle school (so, early 2000s).  It was a handheld device, like a graphing calculator, except all it did was correct spelling, suggest synonyms, and let you play simple word games.  Its entire functionality can be replicated with a smart phone and approximately two minutes on the app store.  The same goes for several other specific recommendations, including the various speech-to-text and text-to-speech programs.  Several of the recommended programs have, in fact, made the transition right onto smartphones.

My amusement aside, the recommended technology is useful.  The authors weren\’t off base in suggesting the categories, just the specific incarnations of those categories.  I\’ve already mentioned the spell-checker and speech-to-text sections… but timers, calendars/planners, address books, and eBook readers are all excellently helpful tools.  And all, of course, can be found on a properly outfitted smartphone…  Perhaps it\’s no surprise that my generation and the newest generation are so attached to our phones.

In addition to the Assistive Technology (AT) recommendations, the book also offered intelligent advice for better organization and easier sensory experiences.  It also had a section for getting and maintaining friendships, which was review for me but would probably have been helpful in my early teens if I\’d had a more normal childhood.  The section on hygiene just annoyed me, but that\’s probably leftover prickly feelings from my own middle school experience.  I still think people are too dependent on their eyes and others\’ appearances to give them information about people, and that biases them against people on the autism spectrum.  Comfy clothes that don\’t make the senses scream are not, after all, often the most fashionable ones.  Brushing one\’s teeth can be intensely unpleasant, never mind flossing.  Hair care can be another difficult sensory experience.

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Life Will Get Better: Simple Solutions for Parents of Children with Attention, Anxiety, Mood, and Behavior Challenges, by Nicole Beurkens, PhD.

Full disclosure time!  This book was written by my LENS-doctor, whose guidance has been invaluable in my efforts to become a healthier person and a better advocate.  This information is important so you know my bias, but also to understanding this review.  I\’ll be brief in some sections due to the fact that they are old news to me.

So as the title may clue you in, this book is not specifically about autism.  It\’s a general strategy guide to raising a special needs kid and keeping your sanity at the same time.  There are two reasons for that.  First, many of the strategies that work with autism also work with ADHD and other diagnoses, because the criteria that define those conditions are… rather overly broad.  Which leads to reason two, this doctor doesn\’t believe diagnoses are terribly valuable as a source of information, because she has a better source: the kids themselves, and their parents. 

This is, in fact, a facet of her philosophy in general, which I found so charming I\’ll just quote it to you from the book rather than paraphrase.  \”My philosophy is that first and foremost these are children– they are not symptoms, problems or diagnoses.\” Basically, Dr. Beurkens believes in personalized care: finding out what challenges each person has, and trying her best to help with them by putting her knowledge base at their fingertips.

Her specific recommendations are fivefold: nutrition, sleep, movement, connection, and cognition.  Or, basically: what you\’re eating, how you\’re sleeping, how much you\’re moving and exercising, how your interpersonal relationships are, and what you\’re thinking. Don\’t be fooled, this is not another \”just eat better food and exercise more and you\’ll be fine!\” leaflet.  The doctor has concrete suggestions for supplementation (as some people on the spectrum/with developmental disabilities don\’t absorb nutrients very well), and she also doesn\’t limit \”movement\” to \”exercise.\”  Instead, she talks about ways to move more around the house, and to include the autistic person in the family\’s activities. 

Likewise, the \”cognition\” section isn\’t \”think positively, and everything will be fine!\”  It includes an explanation of personal agency, or \”how much control I think I have over my life\” and common ways that affects your child.  There\’s a section on increasing flexibility, which autistic people in particular tend to have trouble with.  There\’s also a section on mistakes.  Specifically, a section telling you how to teach your child that mistakes are a good thing, a learning experience, and part of life.  Unfortunately, culture often tells us that mistakes are failures and a sign that you shouldn\’t be trying.  This is a harmful mentality for anyone, but it\’s particularly harmful to rigid-minded people like myself.  We tend to develop perfectionist tendencies, feeling that only the best possible result is the \”right\” one, and anything less is failure.  This is not healthy, and practically speaking, it\’s foolish, but it\’s what happens sometimes.  With this book, a responsible parent (or very forward-thinking autistic adult) can curb that mentality.

A notable point regarding the book\’s contents: they\’re unlike any other book I\’ve read on the subject.  While there\’s often a lot of overlap in \”parent experiences\” books and \”how to help your kid\” books, this book instead focuses on the more unique (but effective) aspects of the author\’s perspective on helping special needs kids.  The cognitive-behavioral sections caught my eye most, because they\’re what I think behavioral psychology should be doing for autistic people.  But really, all of it is good advice and solid strategy.  I didn\’t find a single section I disagreed with.

Which brings up another good point of this book.  This doctor is convinced that it is never too early, nor too late, to start changing things for the better.  She repeats this a few times throughout the book, which hopefully helps drive the point home.  I didn\’t start getting treatment for my problems until I was 20-something, which is far, far too late for early intervention methods.  However, using some of the things found in this book, I\’ve had a lot of improvements to my life and functioning level.

My last note on this book is that it\’s meant to be readable.  It doesn\’t go into lengthy scientific concepts, or use tons of jargon in hopes of sounding smart and authoritative.  It\’s written for a layperson to use, with sparse citations peppered throughout.  While I\’m sure the good doctor could have easily cited sources every 5th sentence, this style of citation is much easier to read, and interested readers can reference the back of the book, where full references are given.  But it says something that\’s there\’s only six pages of references in a book that\’s almost 300 pages long.  This book is not interested in giving you a long list of homework, it simply wants you to know it is based on the current scientific work. And that work is available for you to read further, should you desire to do so.

Read This Book If

You\’re a parent of a child (any age) on the spectrum or with another developmental disability, or a person with those disabilities/differences.  The strategies here are written by a parent, for parents, but someone like me can still adapt the techniques.  This book is easy to read, delivers what the title promises, and does it using what I recognize as a combination of good parenting, intelligent use of psychology, and a strong sense of empathy and compassion.  Highly recommended. 

As a foreword…  if you need immediate assistance, please call 1-800-784-2433, or 1-800-SUICIDE.  People who care and want to listen to you are standing by, 24 hours a day. 

How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me: One Person\’s Guide to Suicide Prevention, by Susan Rose Blauner.

The title pretty much sums up this book.  I snagged this off the library\’s bookshelf because I recognized the title from a library job I\’d worked almost a decade ago, which tells you that this book is far from recent.  The information inside, therefore, may be somewhat dated, but the hotline at the top of this entry is still going strong. While this book does not directly relate to autism, families with autistic people often undergo a lot of stress and conflict, which can lead to depression, which can lead to suicidal thoughts and even actions.  The autistic individual in particular often develops depression, anxiety, or both. 

I had a hard time reading this book, as I\’ve never been seriously suicidal and no one I know has lost their life to suicide as of yet.  So I connected with some of the book\’s contents, but not all of it.  The author talks a lot about being very angry and very sad, and about despair.  I sympathized with those, and I think most people do.  I\’ve never gotten beyond that point, though, to where the pain and fury builds past where you can handle it, day in and day out, warping your perspective until suicide seems like a viable option. 

Despite my lack of experience,  I do firmly believe this is a very important book.  It was one of the first \”self advocate\” style books I\’m aware of.  The author is not a doctor or some trained professional, she is literally a formerly suicidal person who has worked through enough of her issues and retrained enough of her brain, that she no longer hurts enough or is angry enough to find suicide an option to her problems.  And she is quite honest about it, in hopes that her life and her suffering will help other people find their way to where she\’s gotten.

Explained in this book are the author\’s history, which includes several suicidal \”gestures,\” as she calls them.  She tells you what she was thinking (and not thinking), and what happened.  She summarizes her years of therapy, gives you her list of Tricks of the Trade (things she learned that help), and will help you make Crisis Plans for yourself or your loved one.  She even includes honest letters from her relatives and friends about that period of time in her life.  Peppered throughout are pieces of relevant poetry and songs. 

The first four sections of the book are geared towards helping a suicidal thinker, as I mentioned.  The fifth section is for both suicidal thinkers and their concerned friends/family, and includes a section for how to talk to people considering suicide, statistics, and warning signs.  When I was reading this particular section, my gut started screaming at me to write an email to one of my friends, so I did so, using some of the language in this book.  Turns out he was having a really bad time that day, and the email helped make it a bit better.

The last section of this book is a series of resources, divided up by all kinds of categories.  As the writer is from the United States, most of these sources are located there, but there is a section for Canada hotlines as well.  There are also books, and sources for young people, old people, professionals, and survivors. 

Read This Book If

Not My Boy! A Father, a Son, and One Family’s Journey with Autism by Rodney Peete with Danelle Morton.Y’know what’s generally missing in many of these “my family’s experience with autism” stories?  The dad.  You get plenty about the mom, she’s often the driving force behind getting the diagnosis, getting the supports and services the kid needs, and holding the family together.  But not the dad.  In fact, the dad often fades out of the picture entirely.  This is, in part, because taking care of a special needs kid is really stressful, and that\’s brutally hard on a marriage.   But even if the relationship between the mom and the dad stands the test of time, most of these books I’ve read have the mom front and center and the dad is… either not there, or is barely there.  A footnote, so to speak, in the story.

That isn’t how it should be.  Marriages, and parenting as well, are supposed to be a team effort.  This is particularly necessary given the challenges of raising a special needs kid.  The experience, from what I’ve read, is very emotionally taxing of course, but also financially taxing.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, many couples, autistic kid or not, end up breaking up over money issues.

So this book is a rare commodity.  The dad in the family wrote this book.  And not because he took over the mom\’s role in the usual family story.  He was, however, the dad that only faded out of the picture for a few years.  Then he came back, and was the dad his kids needed.  I honestly couldn’t find much to complain about in this book.  The dad is brutally honest, but not cruel, to himself.  He is thoughtful, lets you inside his head, and shows you what happened specifically with him and why this tends to be a pattern with the dads in the “autism family” picture.

Also, I shouldn’t have to mention this as notable, but our society makes it necessary: this book is written by a man of African American descent, and his family is African American.  That fact makes it doubly important, because the stories of minorities in the US often get sidelined, or never told at all.  The author does not particularly focus on this as an important point, his focus for differing advantages is financially-based, but it wasn’t lost on me.  Now more than ever, we as a society need to recognize that the US has a lot of diverse people and stories, and they are all valid.  Maybe we can’t fix racism by waving a magic wand, but we can at least listen to people unlike us and learn their lives and struggles.

Something I liked about this book was the picture section, about halfway through.  It’s not a huge section, but it helps put faces and people on the names and personalities in the book.  The cover, of course, has a picture of the dad and his son, but it’s good to see the sister and other siblings, and the wife.

The last notable point about this book is that this dad doesn’t just give you his story and tell you how he failed, bounced back, and succeeded.  He has advice for all dads dealing with an autistic kid.  And it’s not just advice strictly from his life, he went out and talked with a lot of dads and families, learning from them to find the common pattern and mentality that causes the “absent dad” phenomenon.

I personally found this book heartening, as it and books like it may help turn the tide of this phenomenon, and make it a trend of the past.  As you perhaps recall, I didn’t get my diagnosis until I was 20 or so.  This is, at least in part, because neither of my parents were engaged with the idea that I was very different than my peers.  And probably, in part, because I learned fast enough and had few enough sensory and organizational difficulties that I was able to struggle through school without supports.  That said…  I suffered for that lack.  Not having friends until high school and not being understood by my parents really did a number on my self-worth, my ability to trust other people, and my ability to accept or ask for help.

Obviously, I didn’t implode, and my parents did a lot of other things right.  But in an ideal world, I wouldn’t have had to suffer those lacks.  My dad wouldn’t’ve had the mentality that this author did, that “bringing home the bacon” and “doing occasional activities when time allows” was a sufficient form of fatherhood.  This author learned otherwise, that special needs kids really do need more than a roof and food, and he freely offers his story as an example to other men.  It does me good to see this, and I really hope his story, and those like it, can help turn the tide of broken families in the autism world.

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