Customer Reviews

Asperger Syndrome and Bullying: Strategies and Solutions

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4 star:		(1)
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Nick Dubin's book is a Godsend. It's as simple as that.

This brilliant work on bullying children with Asperger's Syndrome, which is the spectrum partner to autism is long overdue. With candor and unflinching insights, Dubin has not only included statistics; a list of helpful websites; a bibliography and clearly drawn vignettes about bullying and the dynamics of bullying, he has written several clear chapters about how people can be empowered. Educators, parents and spectators have been provided with checklists of bullying behavior and ways to help end it.

One of my favorite parts in this book was when Nick Dubin related a boyhood incident wherein two peers hounded and harassed him and tricked him into being locked into a pair of handcuffs. Luckily, his father caught the bullies in the act and got Nick to tell him what was really going on. When the bullies came by Nick's home shortly after the incident, Nick's father made it clear that he was not taken in by their blandishments and cock and bull story; he defended Nick and made it plain that he would not tolerate kids mistreating his son. You can respect him. I love the way he defended Nick and did not let himself be conned and beguiled by Other People's Children. Sadly, in the case of children on the autism spectrum, peers are not the treat adults often hype them to be. Many children with autism view peers as threats and will understandably go to great lengths to avoid them. Only a masochist would want to endure abuse and sadly many children with autism suffer it on a routine daily basis. Peers are generally the chief offenders.

Nick illustrates excellent examples of this by citing several glaring incidents from his own boyhood. Peers would ask Nick to perform and Nick went along with it, little realizing that his peers were setting him up for ridicule. That was bad enough, but when one boy called him "R*** M**," which is a slur in the autism/Asperger's world, he crossed a line. The boy told Nick that only R*** M** would share Nick's special interests and used this cruel epithet to Nick. That term is every bit as offensive as any ethnic/racial/religious/nationality slur and is always best avoided. I really wish the savant stereotype could be put to rest once and for good!

All too often, children on the spectrum are targeted for peer and, in some cases teacher abuse because of social difficulties and lack of social savvy and understanding. An even more upsetting part to this is that all too often children on the autism spectrum are blamed for their social challenges. It is time for the buck to stop and this is as good a place as any.

I really think we all should raise our glasses to this incredible author and this wonderful book! All parents and educators should have a copy and this book deserves a place of honor for all.

Bullying (which includes both verbal and physical harassment) is an extremely serious problem in our schools today. A large percentage of adolescent and teenage suicides are directly and primarily attributable to bullying. Most of the widely reported school shootings were also at least partly acts of revenge against bullying. Unfortunately, most parents and school administrators simply do not understand the scope of the problem. This is largely due to the perception that teasing and bullying are a "normal part of growing up." All too often, the problem is dismissed by well-meaning school administrators that remember being victims of some teasing and bullying in their own childhoods and who think that the victims should just "get over it".

While it is true that everyone experiences a certain amount of bullying, there are many children in our schools for whom bullying is not just an occasional incident to be shrugged off. For most students with Asperger syndrome, bullying is pervasive, constant, and inescapable. They usually lack the pragmatic language skills to effectively use "comebacks" to respond to teasing, they lack the motor skills to fight back if the harassment turns physical, and they usually have few (if any) friends available to provide emotional support afterwards. Add to that the fact that persons with autism have a biologically based difficulty in dealing with frustration and you have a recipe for disaster.

Nick Dubin shows a rare understanding of the severity and nature of the problem from the standpoint of a former victim. He does a masterful job of explaining why persons with Asperger syndrome (and other forms of autism) are extremely vulnerable to bullying. He also offers a wealth of practical suggestions to combat this problem in our schools. If we, as a society, claim to value diversity, how can we turn our backs on our own children that are harassed daily in our schools for no reason other than the fact that they are different?

Why do we expect a 12 year old child with autism to endure daily harassment that is often far worse than that which would be grounds for a very large lawsuit if it happened to a 30 year old adult in the workplace?

Every school administrator, teacher, and parent needs to read this book. Dubin masterfully shows why the problem is both serious and solvable -- if only parents and school officials will pay attention.

As a parent dealing with a fairly new diagnosis, this book went beyond the title. Finally Asperger's has been explained in a way that allows me to grasp what it is like for my son. I also discovered how even we as adoring parents have unintentionally bullied him. This is a crucial read for parents, teachers and school administration. I strongly recommend it!

Having been bullied most of my life in and out of school I just learned to live with it. It was only when, like the author, I was diagnosed in adulthood with AS that the pieces of my life began to come together. However one thing still troubled me, why was I subjected to such harsh treatment? That was up until I read this book.

This book, written in a style of a informative manual for professionals such as teachers, clearly spells out why people on the spectrum are subjected to bullying and harassment on a daily basis in the torturous prison that is our schools. The author has dedicated a chapter to some of his own experiences and uses these and the stories of others on the spectrum to plainly illustrate his points. However unlike some other books on the subject that I have read he also backs up these points with numerous references to other studies, books and other AS authorities.

I am not saying that this book is without its flaws. For one many of the strategies suggested for use by the teachers and the victims themselves will have in one form or other been tried and have often failed due in part to the fact that some bullies actively look for a chink in the armour, once it is found the whole cycle begins again. Also the book is very thin for the subject matter and while this is good in stopping the reader getting bored it does very little when you are trying to find really good in-depth material on the subject.

Having said that, this book gives a rock solid foundation for parents, victims and teachers to build on and create a better strategy for dealing with bullying of people on the spectrum and those who are not. Also this book puts a strong emphasis on engaging bystanders, turning them from innocent bystanders into a dynamic force to help stamp out bullying when it starts instead of when it has taken root. As it says, Bullying does not happen in a vacuum.

If you are looking for a good book about bullying on the spectrum, this guy knows his stuff.

I have asperber's syndrome and I learned this years after I graduated from highschool. I knew that I was very much bullied all through high school and grade school. I suggest that people read this book and think what is happening with the victems of bullies. Many of of them are aspies who do no know it.

Again, I said this is recomend for every one.

This book was written from the heart from a straight-forward, personal account of Nick's own problems with being bullied throughout his young, academic life. The fact that it was from a personal perspective instead of all those clinical-type books out there made it much easier for a parent to read first-hand what bullying does to a child with Asperger's Syndrome and, most importantly, how he felt, which gives us parents a sense of what our child(ren) go through on a daily basis. The stories were tough to read, as it brought back so many memories of what my boys went through, and still go through, but he has some excellent strategies for parents to teach their children. I also think this should be required reading material for every teacher in elementary, middle, and high school. So much bullying gets swept under the rug, such as "boys will be boys," but that is NOT the case in most bullying cases. It's easy to read, concise, and full of terrific suggestions as to how to handle most bullying situations. It is a must have for every parent/teacher's library. For Nick to offer his own suffering at the hands of bullying, it makes the book more real and, as I said, less "clinical." I gave it the highest rating possible, as it's truly an inspiring story of a child who was bullied horribly, but made the best of it with supportive parents, and the great gift of sharing his stories with us. I can't thank him enough for writing this book. It's given me hope that even though my boys are often bullied or "picked on," they can and WILL grow up to be successful young adults and, thus, successful men!

well-written. all school educators should read t his. I am a school administrator and a parent of a son with Asperger's who is bullied in school. This is very helpful.

Nick Dubin presents an intimate account of what it is to be in the center of misunderstanding/intolerance. Having only read the first 2 chapters (thus far as of this writing), I am immediately drawn to the personal torture of a child's every day life in this world that we "school." I hope that through Dubin's solutions for bullying, I can be an active advocate for my own child who, too, suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. Dubin's book should be a top reference for educators and psychologists when trying to understand this small piece of the autism spectrum.

I thought this book was very informative on what it is like to have Asperger Syndrome and what can be done or what should be done to help with the problem of bullying.