Customer Reviews

Out of Silence: An Autistic Boy's Journey into Language and Communication

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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!!

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.

"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.

I really liked this book because it also teaches you about language and linguistics, while it portrays a child growing up and trying to cope with his disability. The only problem I had was the intervention of FC (facilitated Communication) which was supposedly effective in this child's case.

I am skeptical about FC, but this child was of normal or superior intelligence so it probably worked for him, however, in general FC has not been shown to be beneficial under the scrutiny of scientific study.

I did learn very interesting facts from this book that I would never have known because it looks at Autsim from mainly a language perspective.

Because I believe that Applied Behaviorial Analysis (ABA) which is behavioral treatement of Autism is the only scientific way to treat autism I was a little disturbed at the parent's rejection of this therapy outright. It has worked wonders with my child and has benefitted and even recovered so many children with autism. However this is an 80's story and ABA was not as well known or accepted and people though it used cruel techniques. However now it is the only accepted educational treatement for autism by the NIH, since it is the only treatement that has science to back it up.

Martin ostensibly writes about his nephew, Ian Drummond, but instead segues into protolinguistic and linguistic development. While the inclusion of language studies was interesting in parts, it appeared to be applied in a heavy handed way to every aspect of Ian and his development. Ian's development is chronicled in choppy sketches and minimal vignettes; rather, this book is more of a thesis on language development and studies on language done with chimps.

Ian Drummond was born on August 2, 1983. He appeared to be neurotypical until he received a routine injection. His language came to a grinding halt when he was about 18 months old; his sister, Sarah, some 22 months his senior never broke her linguistic stride. In late 1985 Ian was given a battery of tests in a hospital to determine the cause of his interrupted language development and came away with a diagnosis of autism.

From that point in the book on, Martin relegates all other findings about autism to just language and development of same. What bothered me about this book was Martin's failure to acknowledge reported cases of autism dating back to the Middle Ages; Kanner's studies of children with severe autism and his [Kanner's] coining the term in 1943; Asperger and his findings in 1944 and countless others.

Many people with Asperger's Syndrome generally do not have delayed language development and nor suffer from impaired speech. However, for people with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and/or Asperger's Syndrome (AS) do have original ways of thinking and this has been well documented in many personal accounts.

One cannot help but wonder what of Ian himself. A small fraction of this book describes Ian's behavior. He learned the word "cow" at age 1 and for some reason his uncle remained fixated on this and Ian's intermittent use of that word after his diagnosis. Ian is toilet trained by age 5; he has been in public school classes, which makes one wonder how this was accomplished given the high level of his needs and behavior.

Since Martin is a lay person in re autism, he makes the erroneous statement that his nephew's mind is trapped in an autistic shell. That is not true. Autism is a neurobiological condition that affects sensory integration/processing and language to varying degrees. The mind is not autistic by itself; each system impacts on the others.

In many ways this book is a very simplistic look at autism. Martin insists that autism did not exist prior to the pertussis vaccination which simply is not true; many documented cases and descriptions of autistic behavior have existed for centuries.

Martin's endorsement of "Facilitated Communication" (FC) seems questionable to me. FC has not been proven completely reliable; many cases have reported problems with it or tampering with the person supposedly using this method. How much is being done by the person with autism? How much is being done by the person guiding their hand? Many studies have shown that such typed messages via FC have been coming from the facilitator and NOT the person with autism! Many leading experts on autism have long discredited FC, including Dr. Grandin!

There are many problems with FC. First of all is the questionable source -- who is REALLY typing the messages? Second was the poorly typed messages riddled with extraneous letters in a "voice" that did not sound like that of the child speaking from his own experience. Third is the kind of impact FC can have on the lives of children using it. Fourth is that it lacks spontaneity. Ian's attempts to pull free when held forcibly at the keyboard and pleading to stay home were masterful ways of communicating and without that keyboard!

However, there are cases where people have shown that FC has helped them. For some people who are more severely affected, having someone help them stay focused on what they are doing makes using FC easier for them. For some who have more severe forms of autism, communication can be confusing and Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, the author of "The Mind Tree," even says that words included in other sensory stimuli was so confusing he had to concentrate using only one sensory mode at a time. Tito's mother Soma, who is also profiled in Strange Son and author of Understanding Autism through Rapid Prompting Method describes her direct form of FC and how it worked with Tito. Soma and Tito as well as their friends the Iversens, whose own son Dov worked with Soma give excellent accounts of how well FC worked for them. The main thrust of this statement is to say that FC has been very beneficial in some cases, but it does not appear to have worked with Ian.

Martin also discounts Ian's feelings by dismissing the boy's self stimming behaviors as a facade blocking the "real" Ian. Who is the "real" Ian? The child forced into FC? The child who allegedly typed that his medications "kept him from hearing voices?" Was he really hearing nonexistent voices? If so, did that mean he had a dual diagnosis of schizophrenia? This is not to say he did as many autistics have been misdiagnosed with that one, but if in fact nonexistent voices were part of the picture, then it does beg the question. And was Ian actually saying this?

Unlike a bloodhound who sniffs down every trail until s/he tracks the right quarry, Martin appears to be barking up the wrong tree. He is so determined to paint Ian as the neurotypical (NT) child at all costs, so he discredits the findings of others about autism and appears to advocate overpowering and conquering Ian. It is just this type of thinking about autism that I'd like to see overpowered and conquered and replaced with what Tony Attwood, Mark Fleisher, Will Hadcroft and Edgar Schneider have said instead.

In plain language, skip this book.

Martin approaches autism as a primarily linguistic problem, virtually ignoring it's emotional, mental, and social manifestations unless they relate directly to the language deficit. Nonetheless, the author gives an interesting account of the history of language acquisition and examines its different theories. Were Martin to have written the book solely on what he appears to be most knowledgeable about, there would be little cause for complaint. However, his assertion that autism was caused by a childhood vaccine not only in the case of his nephew but in other children as well is largely unsupported. Similarly, his wholehearted acceptance and belief in the legitimacy of facilitated communication seems to ignore the many problems with FC which experts have raised. One should be aware of Martin's one-sided approach to autism and regard the book as a work concerned primarily with linguistics and language acquisition rather than autism itself.