Customer Reviews

Maverick Mind

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Our family has been lucky enough to meet Dr. Florance and her 3 children after reading her book. It not only gave faces to the names, but it was a joy to see how wonderful they are as a family. Dr. Florance's book has helped our family understand another way of looking at how our brain functions. This book is not a tutorial, however it is a window for some autistics who you know can understand everything that is said to them and can communicate in their minds, just not through their voice. My husband is a neurosurgeon who has a lifetime of not understanding how his brain worked "differently" from others, our 5 year old is gifted and absolutely a visual learner, and our 4 year old son has been diagnosed with autism and PDD since he was 2 years old. After months of different therapy that seemed to just to be going through the motions, one of our therapist brought us this book and it was like turning a light bulb on. Our son, so much like Florance's, can run a computer, a dvd player, and appears to understand everything said to him, yet cannot form correct speech. This book is for those who want to learn how their child's brain is working and then how to possibly find ways to "re-wire" or concentrate on areas to eventually bring those "pictures" to words. I would highly recommend this book for those who enjoy a heart-warming story of a mother's "gut instinct" and determination; and also for those who are looking at another way to understand how some highly visual learners and some autistics are "wired" differently.

I have read this book several times and my son is a client of Cheri Florance's. I noticed several complaints in the other reviews. One that I saw several times was that Dr.Florance's son Whitney was obviously very high functioning and only had Aspergers or PDD. You need to go back and re-read the book. Whitney had no speech and was urinating on people up until the age of almost seven. He was showing the symtoms of someone considered severely autistic at an age when most of our current methods of intervention would consider him hopeless. Secondly, there were many complaints that Dr.Florance did not do anything that had not been done before. I can tell you that her program is different and contains elements not detailed in the book that I have not seen before and my son has had PECS and four years of ABA. One must also keep in mind when reading this book that only a subset of kids on the spectrum and the population at large fit this profile. Dr.Florance is not promising a cure for all autistic kids, nor has she made any promises to cure my son. She offers hope to the parents of children who fit this profile. She mentions her credentials, and they are impressive, because she has to.The book details the personal attacks she has had to fight and, reading many of the responses to her book,still fights.Cheri Florance's book is inspiring and I think parents and professionals should be able to find something enlightening and useful instead of being so quick to criticize. We need more people willing to find creative ways to help children on the spectrum as current methods are only effective in providing a quality of life for a select few.

Reminiscent of the pains and passions of her like-minded predecessors in Paul de Kruif (A Man Against Insanity, 1957) and Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, 1985), Florance records here a first-person account of her investigatory clinical observations and discoveries for a non-specialist readership. Coining the term `Maverick Minds' to describe her highly-visual/low-verbal functioning patients (the key example of the book being one of her own children), the author relates a personal 15-year adventure to include the sufferings (and eventual pleasures) evolving around the development of a potentially `closed' autistic-like behaving boy, to relatively high-functioning, literate, collegiate scholar. With a maverick enthusiasm (in the usual sense of the word) and a stubborn determinism to solve the mystery of her son's aberrant infant behaviour, Florance tells of how she embarked upon a number of scientifically-informed remedial educational intervention practices and training schedules of her own design, whilst stubbornly rejecting the classical diagnoses of her own child as being `autistic'. This method of enquiry (so often neglected in the pursuit of clinical categorisation and prognostic intervention pattern-matching, in my view), was ardently pursued by Florance in an attempt to determine (and focus upon) what the young `autistic-like' boy could do, rather than remaining content to determine what he could not do, in order to develop her training techniques. Many of this book's 18 chapters repeat this theme (though not always explicitly), and it is in tribute to Florance, both as participant investigator and author, that her perseverance and tenacity has resulted in the brighter future now available to her son, and to many others who may now be able to benefit from her writings, and continued clinical work.

Those familiar with the lives of autistic children (whether with specific or more broad-spectrum component diagnoses), will not be surprised to read the authors' frequent references to the life and work of Helen Keller (and her barrier-breaker, Annie Sullivan). Indeed, it is entirely appropriate that Keller's experience be recounted as an example in guiding the non-technical (or less neurophilosophically inclined) reader to understand the authors' logic, as they recount the various stages of the developing `maverick mind' from infantile social isolation, through protolinguistic competency, towards gradual (although significantly delayed) social integration with age-matched peers, as said to have been exhibited during her son's adolescence. I would personally have preferred to also read of the ontological developing brain story which might accompany Florance's arguments (complete with discussion of the emerging plasticity of specific neural circuits in the brain), but perhaps that may await a further volume. Although little clear evidence for emerging neural connectivity development is currently available in addressing Florance's claims directly, I can foresee that such stories are readily beginning to emerge from a piecing together from a variety of fMRI studies now conducted (rather than relying upon the more traditionally favoured pharmacological, and morbid anatomy literature).

Further welcome additions to this volume, would include a searchable index, perhaps a glossary of key terms, and some references to the relevant scientific research literature supporting Florance's thinking (though a few website addresses available at the time of publication, were provided for exploration and further reading). By no means a failure of this highly stimulating, motivating, (and I hope) inspiring work, this book relates a story of a `classic' kind, written by a consultant practitioner who is highly passionate about her field, and one which I will be highly recommending to many of my student psychologists and clinical interns seeking a career in remedial education, a concerned parent seeking a role model, or an educational consultant needing a gentle reminder to be alert to what presenting children can do.

Dr. Tony Dickinson.
Academic Research Laboratory, People Impact International Inc, HK. 2008.

The Maverick Mind *needs* to be a bestseller simply because of the triumph of the story itself. There is so little like this in our world today. There's so much "giving up" and resignation that people do because "the experts" are all swamped and jaded and the system is so flawed.

We give away the value of our uniqueness and our hope de facto because it's so emotionally and physically draining to fight the system and so few of us have the energy and the skills. We go to our school meetings and we get bashed and deflated and sad and often, we lose when our greatest treasure is at stake: the dignity and well being of our children.

This book is not about an autistic boy who "is healed." Maverick Mind is about a genius child who presented to the world as being so different he looked hopelessly disabled, but his tireless unconditionally loving family headed by a mom who happened to be a gifted and educated "brain scientist" out-smarted and out-lasted and at times simply ignored the nay sayers. They focused all their energy on the most valuable entity in existence...that of the fullness and potential of a single human life. It's the embodiment of a dream outcome that all parents who have children with "issues" hope and pray for.

This is a book that any parent who has ever felt the pain of having their child rejected, labeled, and scarred, especially
in the academic arena, will enjoy reading. Once read, you will immediately gain new energy and a different perspective that will enable you to go at it with renewed strength.

LL, Mother, Ranch Owner, Retired Hi-Tech Project Manager
Idaho

Some readers have contributed negative reviews of this book, saying Dr. Florance "reinvented the wheel" with therapies already in use by "autism professionals" as of the date of publication. Please remember that Whitney was born 20 years ago, before autism was the "epidemic" it's been called today -- and long before many parents of "autistic" children were comfortable discussing their children's diagnoses. This has been only a recent development. It was not so long ago that autism was a taboo subject, blamed on "refrigerator mommies" for "withholding" affection from their children -- so who would want to "confess" to being the mom of a child with autistic symptoms? And, then, as now, a child's untreated autistic symptoms can force parents to withdraw from society along with their children. It's hard enough to get a sitter for "normal" children; try to find someone willing to mind a child who bites instead of talking! The therapies Dr. Florance used were unique at the time, and her rationale for what works -- and what fails -- is much better articulated than in many newer books on the subject. In the early days, as the book makes clear, Dr. Florance was alone to figure out how to help her son, with little research to guide her. It was her good fortune to discover that her own professional training and experience, as well as her scientific mindset, allowed her to "unlock" Whitney's mind so she could understand him. What's more important, she allowed him to develop social and academic skills that others told her were inconceivable for a boy in Whitney's condition. Spoiler alert: this book has a very happy ending. If you have or work with a child diagnosed as autistic, it's worth your while to read Maverick Mind to begin to understand that diagnosis is far less important than finding what works -- if a happy ending is YOUR goal.

Thank God for Dr. Florance. I read an earlier review that complained because this book didn't offer a "how-to" primer to duplicate her results...that's not the point! Her story is an inspiration to every parent who has been in the uneasy position of questioning the advice/recommendations/diagnoses of the "experts". Dr. Florance is the silver lining for our gifted visual children.

Everyone should read this book. Dr. Florance is the expert in this field, and the birth of Whitney brought together her incredible background and her most difficult patient. Her perserverance and patience are awe-inspiring.

Read this book and learn about how a truly brilliant mind solves the unsolvable. It's a fascinating journey.

Read this book to learn more about parenting. She makes the observation that once Whitney's abilities increased, his autistic symptoms decreased. They were really symptoms of frustration. When I realized that my son's seemingly unreasonable reactions were normal for a child under a tremendous amount of stress, I was better able to help him.

Read this book and think about the possibilities. How many kids that seem unteachable are really just being taught in the wrong way? How many talented minds are we wasting?

After you read the book, follow her career. 20 years ago she changed the way we treated stuttering. Now she's pioneering a new field. My son is one of her patients and she really can re-engineer the brain.

The story this book tells is an amazing one. Whitney, the "silent son" of the book's title is an intelligent, talented child who experienced profound speech and hearing comprehension delays, and was therefore diagnosed as unteachably retarded and autistic. His mother, brother, and sister devoted themselves to the task of teaching him the speech and hearing skills he needed to function in the world--today, he has an impressive record of academic achievement and a commitment to helping others with similar problems. I highly recommend this book to people who are interested in the details of how one person with serious developmental delays was able to work through those and function successfully.

However, this book is no fun to read. Dr. Florance's first-person narrative is awash in narcissism, grandiosity, name-dropping, smugness, and self-satisfaction. Frankly, it's embarrassing to see that such a brilliant, motivated person has so little self-awareness. The writing is also clumsy and full of errors (Florance, or her collaborator, often use words incorrectly--"nonplussed", for example, to mean "unfazed"--its exact opposite).

This book is certainly worth a read for anyone who loves or teaches a child with special needs. It tells of Whitney's emergance from what most would label autism. He grows from a severely impaired child to a wonderful sounding teen, bright and talented. His mother feels that the problem was what she calls a Maverick Mind, extremely visual to the exclusion of the auditory. I loved reading about his school experiences and working with the educational system to get him what he needed.

However, it's only because this book is so well written and interesting that I gave it 4 stars. It had major flaws, in my eyes. First, the actual means to create this transformation are a bit glossed over. We go from seeing Whitney as pretty much unreachable to seeing him as a child that can talk, write and read with not too much in-between. Yes, he is worked with on "reading" logos and pictures, and putting rebus style words in order, but this alone doesn't seem enough. It's very possible that all the years of caring and training suddenly paid off and kicked in, but this is not really what we are told.

Secondly, I got tired of hearing how talented and well-known and knowledgable and bright the author, Whitney's mother, was. She was certainly uniquely qualified to help him, but that point was pounded in too much. Also, we are told over and over how the clients, most of whom by the end of the book are "Maverick Minds" like Whitney, are from rich, powerful, CEO families. Money also seems to be no object for Whitney's family, whether to buy new houses all the time, hire what sounds like pretty much a full time personal trainer or go to the best schools. I was left wonderful what other families with children with Whitney but limited means might be able to do about their child.

Thirdly, although the author does explain in the foreward she has decided not to include her ex-husband in the book, his complete absense is a bit strange. It is made to see like her 3 children are virgin births, and that he had no influence whatsoever during the 12 years he was with the family. I would have liked to know just a little about him, at least what he was like and if some of the maverick traits may have come from him.

Overall, worth reading, but be prepared to be a bit irritated at points!

Maverick Mind is a sad story about the disruptive effect autism can have on a whole family. Striving for a healthy balance and a family life that does not revolve around a disability is difficult, but this book offers no help. It is a case study in denial.

The most disturbing to me was Florance's co-opting of her older children into being parents and therapists from childhood. It seems the family rule is if you are not "fixing" Whitney, you don't count.

As a speech language pathologist and audiologist, I find her arguments for the theory of rewiring the brain unconvincing. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and I am utterly unconvinced.

She describes her son as being a visual genius, yet the only visual testing she reported showed him to be below age level.

Her use of the terms "hearing impairment" and "deafness" were incorrect. I've spent my career working with deaf and hard of hearing children and none of them exhibit autistic behaviors. I also work with deaf children who are also autistic, and they do not learn sign language any easier than a spoken language. The problem does not lie in hearing.

The author's comparison to Hellen Keller is faulty. Hellen Keller, like all deaf children, had a normal brain ready for language input. Once the connection was made, the floodgates opened and she was able to acquire language. Autistic children, including Whitney, do not have a brain primed for language and social interaction that can be tapped suddenly by finding a magic key. The progress for any child whose brain is not wired for language acquisition is slow and laborious. Florance's suggestion that her son's progress was anything different or that she has found some magic elixir to cure autism is, at best, misguided, and at worst, criminal. How many more parents are going to hope beyond hope for a magic cure to "unlock"the normal child inside their autisic one. Remember facilitated communication? Auditory integration training? How many times do we have to do this to parents?

Many bright autistic people before this child have learned to talk and have been successful in school. Temple Grandin followed a very similar developmental pattern without any of the enlightened intervention strategies we utilize today.

We understand today, that autism is NOT only rocking and flapping and unteachable children. Autism (autism spectrum, PDD, Asberger's syndrome) comes in many flavors, including bright children who take a few years to pull it together before they can begin to achieve success in the most basic skills of connectedness, communication and eventually academic learning.

Every characteristic this young man exhibited and exhibits are typical of Asberger's syndrome. There is no need to coin any new syndrome. It is already understood and described in current literature.

Florance describes inventing a visual-to-auditory training system, yet PECs which has been used for sometime to bridge children with autism into spoken communication is essentially the same its' use of pictures and images to connect to words. What's new here?

Florance's ego permeates every chapter of this book to an embarrassing level. No credit is given to any of this young man's teachers or school administrators, nor to any family members (other than the siblings/therapists). Florance takes personal credit for every step of progress he made. She fights every school placement, despite the fact that he thrives in each setting and learns and grows at each place.

This message of "school is enemy" is disappointing, especially from a speech language therapist. How many parents will take away from this book the idea that the only way to get good services from a school is to come in fighting? Most teachers and support staff work in schools because they have an intense drive to make a difference in their student's lives. As both a professional and a parent of a child with a learning disability, I find asking for help (albeit, sometimes more than once) and working with the school staff is an effective way of getting good help for my daughter.

Despite my serious concerns, I found some amazing gems in this text. Florence gives an excellent description of how this boy was fundamentally different from her older children from the moment of birth. She offers a cogent discussion about the weaknesses of standardized testing for the purposes of designing teaching/intervention and the unhelpful nature of composite scores for children who have disparate skills. Though steeped in unhealthy denial, Florance's ability to see and celebrate her son's skills despite huge disabilities as well as the notion that these abilities can be used to teach to areas of need is a model every educator and therapist should embrace.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in autism, family dynamics in the presence of disability, and siblings of disabled children. The book has many fundamental faults, but the description of this child's development is fascinating.

Straight From the Heart -- A must read for those with family members struggling with language or learning disabilities -- Dr. Florance fights conventional wisdom with intense passion and delivers a riveting story filled with a treasure trove of creative ideas in detailing how she managed to help her son,Whitney. Maverick Mind is a powerful story that will truly change peoples'lives!!!