In a tone that brings to mind bubbly teenage girls, Jessica Peers recounts five years at a National Autistic Society residential school in the United Kingdom. The back cover of this book suggests that the book will give insights into Asperger's syndrome. On that point, it seems to be wrong. However, it does give a lot of insight into institutional life.
Peers has a talent for wryly amusing caricature, whether in drawing (her cartoons appear throughout the book) or in sketching out people's character in words. Not everything in the book is amusing, though. There are some truly harrowing scenes of physical and emotional abuse by staff, as well as the usual detached brusqueness that crops up in places like that. The funny descriptions offset the often-heavy situations enough to make it readable to us without causing too much pain, and one almost wonders if the author had the same idea herself.
Inspired by the often uncomfortable interplay between autistic individuals, parents and professionals in understanding autistic spectrum conditions, Olga Bogdashina uses the concept of Theory of Mind (TOM) to consider these groups' different (and often conflicting) perspectives. TOM is the ability to imagine and make judgements about what others feel and think; its absence in autistic individuals is called 'mindblindness'. This book addresses the 'mindblindness' of people united in their interest in autism but divided by their different angles and perspectives.
100 Questions & Answers About Autism: Expert Advice from a Physician/Parent Caregiver focuses on issues of critical importance to those who love and care for autistic children and adults. This book gives you authoritative, practical answers to the most common questions about autism, including causes, diagnosis, treatment options, sources of support, and much more. Written by a physician who is the parent of an autistic child, this text combines the author’s medical knowledge, extensive research, and personal experience.
This volume, the first scholarly book on autism and the humanities, brings scholars from several different disciplines together with adults on the autism spectrum to investigate the diverse ways that autism has been represented in novels, poems, autobiographies, films and clinical discourses, and to explore the connections and demarcations between autistic and normal creative expression.
This book draws together contributions from some of the leading investigators in the field of autism to consider specific problem areas in current research. Each contributor brings expertise from a different field, providing a balanced view of the whole spectrum of study of this disorder. The book focusses ultimately on intervention studies and so is of practical relevance to people interested in helping autistic children. In addition, it provides a very convenient summary of the principal controversies which currently exist in research on autism.
