Gentle Giant: The Inspiring Story of an Autistic Child [Paperback]

Wendy Robinson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Element Books Ltd (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862043043
• ISBN-13: 978-1862043046
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,835,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrifying...just...horrifying., June 9, 2004

By 

D. M. Degraf "Autistic Moggy Mania" (Happily Autistic in Northern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gentle Giant: The Inspiring Story of an Autistic Child (Paperback)

I am an autistic woman that loves to read books about others of my own kind -- but "Gentle Giant" was so painful I could barely handle reading it. "Grant" is forcibly held for hours, hit, tied to chairs, drugged, you name it. There is no show of awareness that Grant has any feelings, any desires, any needs, and his efforts to communicate in a manner natural to him are totally dismissed. He is, in short, treated like nothing more than a bothersome object, and it's deeply disturbing to read.

At one point, for example, his mother decides she wants to be cuddled. She shows no awareness that her son might not WANT to cuddle her. So she wraps herself around him like a boa constrictor, holding the terrified, screaming, panicked boy down until he goes limp from sheer exhaustion and falls asleep! She is then blissfully happy that she can cuddle her little rag-doll all she wants, and *she* enjoys it so much, she does it to the poor kid every day for hours. Her older son tries to tell her that it's obviously scary and traumatic for his brother, and she understands that it is, but she doesn't care; all that matters to her is getting what *she* wants.

It is true that we autistics like deep pressure. When I am upset, my partner will lie down on top of me (at MY request) so I can feel safe and the pressure quiets my neurological system. I've also had it done against my will by force, and it was terrifying and deeply upsetting. Having it done by choice, totally under my control, is like making love; being tackled and held down is more like being emotionally raped.

Many autism books like Elijah's Cup show how, with accommodation and true acceptance, we autistics can grow up to be happy, productive adults, using our talents and interests to our advantage. "Gentle Giant" showed, in gruesome detail, how the pro-cure mentality of forcing an autie to act "normal" results in an angry, depressed, dysfunctional and ultimately dead autistic. Yeah, they cured his autism -- he died at age 20 in an institution, supposedly of a seizure, though anybody that has researched such places is aware that their tendency to quickly resort to restraints causes frequent deaths that are then attributed to seizure.

If you read this book, I implore you, as an autistic myself, and in love with another autistic -- read it as a manual of how *not* to treat our kind. We are as deserving of humane, dignified treatment as you are, and we can find great joy in the world when we're allowed and aided in doing things in a way that matches our neurological needs.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Manual for Child Abuse, June 10, 2004

By 

Kaiden Fox (www.lylyth.org) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gentle Giant: The Inspiring Story of an Autistic Child (Paperback)

Allow me to quote from the book itself:

"My first attempt was in the lounge in an easy chair and we struggled and fought for a good twenty minutes with Grant screaming, kicking, and struggling wildly to escape the vice-like determined grasp that his mother held on him. However, I would not let him go, despite the fight he made to break away, and eventually he fell asleep utterly exhausted and I felt triumphant. Here I was cuddling my child, although asleep, and I had held him in my arms for the longest time since his hospital tests. It was exciting and a challenge... I had brief visions of taking my 'cured' little boy by the hand into the local primary school! I survived on those dreams!
...
He [Grant's other brother] decided that he would demonstrate how he felt 'holding' might not help his brother. He picked me up and flattened me on the floor, sitting on top of me and pinning my arms to either side of my head! 'Struggle!' he commanded. I tried, but no way could I be released from his grip. 'Now,' he said, 'what do you feel like?'
'Trapped and frustrated,' I breathlessly replied.
'Quite,' he said, and released me!
Despite this I felt we should go ahead. Surely the idea was to make the child angry and frustrated so you break down their barriers, thus producing eye contact and speech... Most of the time Grant would look in any direction but our eyes and go deep into himself, refusing to let out any angers or frustrations. He had a resigned air of patience with a 'you can try all you like but I can stay shut off from what you are doing until you are fed up' attitude. I think it let out oodles of our own emotions if nothing else. If you spent nearly two hours to get this kind of reaction, you finished up feeling frustrated and downhearted at your lack of achievement. On the other hand, there were good sessions that might have been shorter, but much more satisfactory and made you feel that it was all worthwhile."

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Searching for a miracle, April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gentle Giant: The Inspiring Story of an Autistic Child (Paperback)

"Gentle Giant" is, in part, a loving and often funny account of a young man with autism who was clearly as gentle as the title suggests. If nothing else, it gives a very strong sense of how exhausting coping with an autistic child can be.

Yet there were also aspects of the book that I found saddening, even worrying. Wendy Robinson states at many points her faith that there was a normal child somehow "trapped" inside her autistic son, that the autistic boy was just a shell, not the real Grant. In some ways, her quest for a "miracle cure" seems to involve a rejection of the autistic son she describes so well and so affectionately. She praises a number of treatments, such as facilitated communication and holding therapy, which have been claimed to liberate the normal child supposedly trapped inside the autism, without mentioning that both of these have not only been scientifically discredited but also criticized as potentially extremely damaging to the autistic child and their family.

Many high-functioning people with autism such as Temple Grandin have made it clear that there is no normal person inside, and written movingly about their need to be accepted as they are. However difficult and sometimes frustrating living with an autistic person can be, rejecting them in favour of an imaginary normal child inside them is no solution.