3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not too good!!, November 15, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Out of Silence: An Autistic Boy's Journey into Language and Communication (Paperback)
I bought this book under the impression that it was a potryal of the life of a boy with autism. Instead, it is pretty much useless chatter by Ian's uncle about the evolution of language. He did not fully talk about Ian until about 3/4 of the way through the book. Buy the book if you want to learn about the evolution of language, but if you are looking to read about autism, save your money!!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Good primer on the issues of life with an autistic child, September 19, 2005
This review is from: Out of Silence: An Autistic Boy's Journey into Language and Communication (Paperback)
This is probably the most powerful book I've read on autism. The author is a professional writer, so he knows how to tell a story, which is unusual in books on autism. Also, he tells the story from the unique perspective of an uncle of a young autistic boy. He is close enough to the family to feel empathy for the subject, and have the detailed information of a family insider, and yet distant enough to maintain the clear perspective of an observant storyteller. This is a good book for a family with an autistic child to share with friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. It is interesting and readable, and gives a "layman" a good (but grim) picture of what autism really is.
The book itself is about Ian, who is diagnosed as lower-functioning autistic at preschool age. It carries on through Ian's elementary school years, the family's hope for a cure or solution, the parents' emotional and financial struggles, and the older daughter's distress at the situation along the way. Ian develops in some areas, and is eventually able to communicate using hand-over-hand typing. The author had earlier written a book on a neurosurgeon, and through it gained some knowledge of neurological development. His chapters speculating on neurological and language development and the causes of autism perhaps have to be taken with a grain of salt, but they are informative nonetheless. These chapters aside, this book is about little Ian, and his progress over several years. For parents of an autistic child, it is valuable just to see how Ian fared over the years, both developmentally and in the public school system. This is not a happy or triumphant story-- it's a real-life, realistic look at life with autism. In the end, one feels a closeness to Ian, and wonders how he is doing now.
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9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Writing off Ian?, August 16, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Out of Silence: An Autistic Boy's Journey into Language and Communication (Paperback)
"Out Of Silence" is written in beautiful, even flowery, language, but in many ways the book's style seems to triumph over its substance.
Martin writes with enthusiasm about linguistic theory and the history of autism, but lacks expertise and so makes elementary mistakes and omissions - for example, he claims that there were almost no cases of autism in existence before the introduction of the pertussis vaccine, which he blames for most cases of autism, ignoring the fact that experts have found unmistakable cases of autism in records dating back to the Middle Ages.
Similarly, his attempt to see autism in its entirety as a linguistic problem leads him to ignore the overwhelming evidence that people with autism (who may in some cases have near-normal language skills) also think in ways which are very different from the norm (as is confirmed by first-person accounts written by people with high-functioning autism).
In some ways, the most disturbing aspect of the book is its presentation of FC: "facilitated communication". Because of his linguistic view of autism, Martin sees it as a disorder in which a normal mind is "trapped" within an autistic body, and so it is unsurprising that FC would appeal to him, and that he would refuse to accept the numerous studies which have unequivocally shown that the messages are coming unconsciously from the facililitator. Nonetheless, his presentation of the debate is shoddy. He simply accuses critics of FC of thinking that people with autism are "idiots", an accusation which is cruel and ironic given that those who accept the evidence against FC include a number of high-functioning autistic people such as Temple Grandin.
He ignores the key question about FC: how much damage can be done to the lives of autistic children and adults if absolute trust is placed in "messages" which may not be coming from them at all? He describes, apparently without qualms, the parents of his autistic nephew Ian physically holding him at the keyboard despite his struggles, force-feeding him, and forcibly taking a struggling Ian to school despite his verbal cries of "stay home! sick!" - all because the facilitated "messages" say that this is what he really wants. Ian's favourite activities, like flapping book pages, are characterized as nothing more than involuntary body movements that get in the way of the "real" Ian.
In his pursuit of the normal child supposedly trapped within, Martin and others seem to be in danger of writing off the autistic child as a mere "shell", to be disregarded and overpowered where possible.
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