A Real Boy: How Autism Shattered Our Lives and Made a Family from the Pieces


Christopher Stevens - 2008
    He is unable to speak more than a few words, barely capable of expressing his most basic needs, oblivious to danger and blind to other people’s emotions. This is the heart-wrenching story of bringing up a child who will always be a little boy and an account of both the heartbreak and the unexpected joy of autism. With raw and sometimes brutal honesty, Christopher and Nicola Stevens lay bare their experiences, which are by turns harrowing, funny, and inspirational. As David’s story unfolds, his parents reveal how the condition has both tested their limits, and helped to forge an unbreakable bond of love.

The Asperger's Answer Book: Professional Answers to 300 of the Top Questions Parents Ask


Susan Ashley - 2006
    Written by an experienced child psychologist, The Asperger's Answer Book covers such topics as:Is it autism or is it Asperger's?Getting your child evaluatedEmotional intelligenceRoutines and ritualsMotor skillsSensory sensitivityGrowing up with Asperger's SyndromeWritten in an easy-to-read Q&A format, The Asperger's Answer Book helps parents understand and accept their child's illness and develop a plan for success.

George and Sam


Charlotte Moore - 2004
    George and Sam are autistic. George and Sam takes the reader from the births of each of the two boys, along the painstaking path to diagnosis, interventions, schooling and more. She writes powerfully about her family and her sons, and allows readers to see the boys behind the label of autism. Their often puzzling behavior, unusual food aversions, and the different ways that autism effects George and Sam lend deeper insight into this confounding disorder.George and Sam emerge from her narrative as distinct, wonderful, and at times frustrating children who both are autistic through and through. Moore does not feel the need to search for cause or cure, but simply to find the best ways to help her sons. She conveys to readers what autism is and isn't, what therapies have worked and what hasn't been effective, and paints a moving, memorable portrait of life with her boys.

Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Autism


Jeannie Davide-Rivera - 2013
    Twirling Naked in the Streets will take you on a journey into the mind of a child on the autism spectrum; a child who grows into an adolescent, an adult, and becomes a wife, mother, student, and writer with autism. This is a gripping memoir of a quirky, weird, but gifted child who grows up never quite finding her niche. It took 38 years to discover that all the issues, problems, and weirdness she experienced were because she had Asperger's Syndrome (AS), a form of high-functioning autism.The tale begins at age three and takes us all the way through her diagnosis. Along the way she explains autism in a way that will have fellow "Aspies" crying tears of joy at being understood, and "neuro-typical" people really starting to grasp the challenges that autistic people face every moment of every day.

Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism


Roy Richard Grinker - 2007
    His search took him to Africa, India, and East Asia, to the National Institutes of Mental Health, and to the mountains of Appalachia. What he discovered is both surprising and controversial: There is no true increase in autism. Grinker shows that the identification and treatment of autism depends on culture just as much as on science. As more and more cases of autism are documented, doctors are describing the disorder better, school systems are coding it better--and children are benefiting. Filled with moving stories and informed by the latest science, Unstrange Minds is unlike any other book on autism. It is a powerful testament to a father's quest for the truth, and is urgently relevant to anyone whose life is touched by one of history's most puzzling disorders.

Everybody Is Different: A Book for Young People Who Have Brothers or Sisters with Autism


Fiona Bleach - 2001
    Explaining the characteristics of autism, this book features helpful suggestions for making family life more comfortable for those concerned.

Elijah's Cup: A Family's Journey into the Community and Culture of High-functioning Autism and Asperger's Syndrome (Revised edition)


Valerie Paradiž - 2002
    Her inspiring narrative offers compelling insights into daily life with Elijah's Asperger's syndrome and her own 'shadow syndrome', which affects many family members of autistics. It is also a celebration of the idiosyncratic beauty of the Asperger mind and the sense of mutual support and self-respect in the ASD community.This revised edition includes a contribution from Elijah and a new chapter that brings the story up-to-date: the author successfully sets up a specialist educational unit for Asperger pupils, Elijah experiences his first two years of school, and the author's dawning recognition of her own Asperger's Syndrome leads to major life changes.Elijah's Cup offers moving and insightful observations as well as factual information for parents and anyone working with people with ASDs.

The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband


David Finch - 2012
    Five years after he married Kristen, the love of his life, they learn that he has Asperger syndrome. The diagnosis explains David’s ever-growing list of quirks and compulsions, his lifelong propensity to quack and otherwise melt down in social exchanges, and his clinical-strength inflexibility. But it doesn’t make him any easier to live with.Determined to change, David sets out to understand Asperger syndrome and learn to be a better husband—no easy task for a guy whose inability to express himself rivals his two-year-old daughter's, who thinks his responsibility for laundry extends no further than throwing things in (or at) the hamper, and whose autism-spectrum condition makes seeing his wife's point of view a near impossibility.Nevertheless, David devotes himself to improving his marriage with an endearing yet hilarious zeal that involves excessive note-taking, performance reviews, and most of all, the Journal of Best Practices: a collection of hundreds of maxims and hard-won epiphanies that result from self-reflection both comic and painful. They include "Don’t change the radio station when she's singing along," "Apologies do not count when you shout them," and "Be her friend, first and always." Guided by the Journal of Best Practices, David transforms himself over the course of two years from the world’s most trying husband to the husband who tries the hardest, the husband he’d always meant to be.Filled with humor and surprising wisdom, The Journal of Best Practices is a candid story of ruthless self-improvement, a unique window into living with an autism-spectrum condition, and proof that a true heart can conquer all.

Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies, and Hope That Can Transform a Child's Life


Lynn Kern Koegel - 2004
    In this extraordinary book, Lynn Kern Koegel, a leading clinician, researcher, and cofounder of the renowned Autism Research Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara, combines her cutting-edge expertise with the everyday perspectives of Claire LaZebnik, a writer whose experience with a son with autism provides a rare window into the disorder. Together, they draw on the highly effective “pivotal response” approach developed at the center to provide concrete ways of improving the symptoms of autism and the emotional struggles that surround it, while reminding readers never to lose sight of the humor that lurks in the disability’s quirkiness or the importance of enjoying your child. From the shock of diagnosis to the step-by-step work with verbal communication, social interaction, self-stimulation, meltdowns, fears, and more, the answers are here-in a book that is as warm and nurturing as it is authoritative.

Understanding Your Child's Sensory Signals


Angie Voss - 2015
    PLUS BONUS CONTENT...Sensory in a Nutshell! Just a little bit more, but not too much to overwhelm you. This practical, daily application handbook is helping parents, teachers, and caregivers all over the world to understand sensory signals and cues from a child rather than jumping to the conclusion of behavior driven. This user friendly "go to" handbook is geared for daily use and as a quick sensory reference guide designed to work hand in hand with ASensoryLife.com, where you can find printable handouts, sensory how-to videos, sensory tools and equipment ideas and links, as well as a sensory ideas on a budget. Enjoy the simple, organized format to give you the essential and useful information to respond to the child's sensory needs right on the spot! The handbook provides simple every day sensory strategies and techniques to help ALL children; including SPD, autism spectrum disorders, ADD/ADHD, APD, and developmental disabilities. This handbook provides guidance and understanding as to why children do what they do in regards to unique sensory processing differences and needs. When you respect a child's sensory differences, it will change how you respond. Keep it Real. Keep it Simple. Keep it Sensory!

The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them


Elaine N. Aron - 2002
    Up to 20 percent of the population is born highly sensitive, and now in The Highly Sensitive Child, Aron shifts her focus to highly sensitive children, who share the same characteristics as highly sensitive adults and thus face unique challenges as they grow up.Rooted in Aron's years of experience as a psychotherapist and her original research on child temperament, The Highly Sensitive Child shows how HSCs are born deeply reflective, sensitive to the subtle, and easily overwhelmed. These qualities can make for smart, conscientious, creative children, but with the wrong parenting or schooling, they can become unusually shy or timid, or begin acting out. Few parents and teachers understand where this behavior comes from-and as a result, HSCs are often mislabeled as overly inhibited, fearful, or "fussy,"or classified as "problem children" (and in some cases, misdiagnosed with disorders such as Attention Deficit Disorder). But raised with proper understanding and care, HSCs are no more prone to these problems than nonsensitive children and can grow up to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults.In this pioneering work, parents will find helpful self-tests and case studies to help them understand their HSC, along with thorough advice on: - The challenges of raising an highly sensitive child- The four keys to successfully parenting an HSC- How to soothe highly sensitive infants- Helping sensitive children survive in a not-so-sensitive world- Making school and friendships enjoyableWith chapters addressing the needs of specific age groups, from newborns through teens, The Highly Sensitive Child delivers warmhearted, timely information for parents, teachers, and the sensitive children in their lives.

Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant


Daniel Tammet - 2006
    Tammet's ability to think abstractly, deviate from routine, and empathize, interact and communicate with others is impaired, yet he's capable of incredible feats of memorization and mental calculation. Besides being able to effortlessly multiply and divide huge sums in his head with the speed and accuracy of a computer, Tammet, the subject of the 2005 documentary Brainman, learned Icelandic in a single week and recited the number pi up to the 22,514th digit, breaking the European record. He also experiences synesthesia, an unusual neurological syndrome that enables him to experience numbers and words as "shapes, colors, textures and motions." Tammet traces his life from a frustrating, withdrawn childhood and adolescence to his adult achievements, which include teaching in Lithuania, achieving financial independence with an educational Web site and sustaining a long-term romantic relationship. As one of only about 50 people living today with synesthesia and autism, Tammet's condition is intriguing to researchers; his ability to express himself clearly and with a surprisingly engaging tone (given his symptoms) makes for an account that will intrigue others as well.

Asperger's Rules!: How to Make Sense of School and Friends


Blythe Grossberg - 2012
    This book makes school easier for kids with Asperger's by explaining the confusing--and often unwritten--rules of the classroom.Asperger's Rules is filled with examples, quizzes, and exercises to help you:Understand your feelings and emotions;Ask teachers for help;Have good classroom behavior;Navigate lunch, recess, gym, and other situations in school;Interact with other kids;Deal with bullies and mean kids; andMaintain healthy habitsAsperger's Rules helps you learn the rules, so you will be better able to show your true talents at school. Blythe Grossberg, PsyD, is a learning specialist in New York City who works to help children and adults to become more effective at school and at work.

Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences


Thomas Armstrong - 2010
    ADHD. Dyslexia. Autism. The number of categories of illnesses listed by the American Psychiatric Association has tripled in the past fifty years. With so many people affected by our growing “culture of disabilities,” it no longer makes sense to hold on to the deficit-ridden idea of neuropsychological illness.With the sensibility of Oliver Sacks and Kay Redfield Jamison, psychologist Thomas Armstrong offers a revolutionary perspective that reframes many neuropsychological disorders as part of the natural diversity of the human brain rather than as definitive illnesses. Neurodiversity emphasizes their positive dimensions, showing how people with ADHD, bipolar disorder, and other conditions have inherent evolutionary advantages that, matched with the appropriate environment or ecological niche, can help them achieve dignity and wholeness in their lives.

Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women


Sarah Bargiela - 2019
    This graphic novel offers an engaging and accessible insight into the lives and minds of autistic women, using real-life case studies.The charming illustrations lead readers on a visual journey of how women on the spectrum experience everyday life, from metaphors and masking in social situations, to friendships and relationships and the role of special interests.Fun, sensitive and informative, this is a fantastic resource for anyone who wishes to understand how gender affects autism, and how to create safer supportive and more accessible environments for women on the spectrum.