Review
‘Without being aware of it we all continuously attribute mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to other people, and in this way we predict what they are going to do next. This is what children and adults with autism cannot do spontaneously. But, years of painstaking research has shown that they can be taught to do it. Clearly, this does not turn them into spontaneous mentalisers, but it does benefit their understanding of the otherwise unpredictable social world.
‘In their scholarly introduction to the book the authors review an impressive number of training studies using different types of teaching aids. Informed by scientific evidence, and without any hype, they offer the best of these in The Workbook. It contains teaching aids in picture and story form that are bound to inspire teachers. The general approach is to build up a sequence of skills in line with the sequence observed in typical development; from joint attention, to pretend play, to perspective taking, to understanding emotions, desire and more complex informational mental states such as knowledge and ignorance, and finally complex second order beliefs (eg: “he thinks that she believes he is telling the truth”). It is with these complex mental states that the new workbook has expanded most over the previous one.
‘This manual provides an invaluable source of ideas and techniques on how to teach children and adults with autism about mental states, and it never loses sight of the need to link this teaching to their social skills in everyday life.’
—Professor Uta Frith, University College London, UK
“The Workbook joins the authors’ seminal Teaching Children with Autism to Mind-Read: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Parents in providing research-based protocols for developing and advancing mentalizing skills and social cognition in children with autism spectrum conditions. It extends the program provided in the book, offering scientifically validated, though clear and simple-to-use, principles for the understanding of informational states, as well as illuminating stories, examples and activities, promoting the generalization of the principles acquired.
“The Workbook is highly recommended for parents, teachers, and clinicians wishing to base their work on rigorous scientific knowledge of how the understanding of others’ minds works, and how this can be improved in children on the autistic spectrum.”
—Dr Ofer Golan, Head of the Child Clinical Program, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
From the Back Cover
The difficulties experienced by children with autism and related conditions in inferring the thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions of others are well documented.
Teaching Children with Autism to Mind-Read: A Practical Guide is widely recognized as an innovative and effective teaching resource for practitioners in the field to help individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) improve their understanding of other people's minds. This new workbook expands on the original work of the authors -- all recognized experts in the field -- to present the latest and most effective approaches, strategies, and practical guidelines to help alleviate social and communication problems in individuals with ASD.
Working in concert with the authors' original volume, the workbook covers issues such as how to:
- interpret facial expressions
- recognize feelings of anger, sadness, fear and happiness
- perceive how feelings are affected by what happens and what is expected to happen
- see things from another person’s perspective
- understand another person’s knowledge and beliefs
Teaching Children with Autism to Mind-Read: A Workbook is an invaluable resource for professionals, parents, or anyone else assisting individuals with ASD.
