Customer Reviews

The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dr. Temple Grandin takes this simple phrase and makes it the central theme to her book "As I See It." She explains, in very concrete examples, that autism is a 'spectrum' disorder, and no two individuals share the exact same traits. Autism is simply a different way of thinking and learning; and with the right type and intensity of services, significant improvements can be made.

I enjoyed this book very much because Temple makes it very plain from the get-go that as a parent of an autistic/Asperger's child, doing nothing is the worst thing possible. Don't let the child stim all day long, don't hold onto the belief that he/she will "grow out of these behaviors", and never let the label define the child. In addition, she stresses the important of teaching the child proper manners, acceptable behaviors, and setting goals for them to achieve (within reason).

She goes on to say that tasks need to be taught in a piece-by-piece manner so the child does not succumb to sensory overload. I was particularly fascinated by her personal description of sensory overload in the autistic/Asperger's mind, caused by items like fluorescent lights, fire alarms, ticking clocks, uncomfortable fabrics, and much more. Recognizing these learning hurdles requires a bit of detective work on the part of parents and teachers - but in the end, they will help in the child's treatment and learning process.

Personal examples are provided as often as possible, which helps provide a very real and unabashed view into the autistic mindset. Dr. Grandin remembers with vivid detail getting a question wrong on a kindergarten quiz where she had to mark items that began with the letter "B". Since suitcases were called "bags" in her house, she had no idea that her answer could be interpreted differently - a shining example of the frustration an autistic child can face.

Dr. Grandin didn't stop her book with the early years of learning...far from it. She talks about ways of turning an autistic child's obsessions into skills that are valued in the workplace. There are chapters which discuss the pros and cons of medicine and biomedical therapies. One of the most interesting chapters discusses nonverbal autism and the preconceived notion that if one is nonverbal, they aren't intelligent: Her interview with Tito Mukhopadhyay and her reference to Amanda Bagg's YouTube video "In My Language" allow us to shatter that notion into a million pieces. She offers websites and books for additional reference, providing a wealth of resources for the reader.

Social awareness is touched on as well, and since Dr. Grandin is more task-oriented than socially oriented, she openly admits her shortcomings in this area...but she stresses the importance of nurturing skills that will allow an autistic/Asperger's child to grow into a functioning workplace member.

All in all, I found this to be very organized, informative and a worthwhile book to read. If you have any interest in studying autism, if you have an autistic child or want to work as a classroom aide, this book will provide several intervention plans with a personal touch from its author.

I would also recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - even though this is a fictional book, the author's writing style is meant to mimic the writings of a high-functioning child with Asperger's. This book got me interested in the nature of autism and prodded me into reading Dr. Grandin's book.

I'm usually not one to write rave reviews for anything, but as a father of a high functioning autistic child, I can say that this is the best book on the subject I've ever read.

This book is a collection of magazine column articles that were published over the course of several years. About 25% of the pages in the body of the book are either blank, chapter title pages, or pages with a single big quote on them, so this book is actually quite a bit shorter than you'd think from the page count.

But the content is what matters, and I found the author's writing style to be both accessible and to the point. I was also impressed with the fact that the author is an extraordinarily accomplished professional in an area other than being an author. This is written from the perspective of someone who has already walked the talk and is now sharing "how it's done" with the rest of us.

Since it's a collection of magazine column sized chapters, and because each autism/asperger's child is unique, the reader will likely find that some chapters apply to their particular situation a lot more than others. For example, the chapter on drugs didn't apply to us (at least not yet) becuase we haven't needed to "go there" yet with our son.

However, the columns dealing with vocation and socialization are priceless to a parent who knows their son or daugher is bright, but has difficulty getting along with others. In this area, Grandin shares the step-by-step sequence (which in real life may take years) of first discovering your child's strengths and interests, then building skills based on those strengths and interests, and then getting the child into some organization built for people with those interests (it's easier to socialize with people who have the same interests), and then getting the child outside that organization to learn to socialze in general.

Also, I found the information on brain construction and differences in "white matter" configuration in the brain to be fascinating. It explains a lot. Much of who we are seems to depend on how the white matter vs. grey matter gets sorted out in our brains.

Grandin also confirms what I already suspected, that much of our technology is developed by people with autism/asperger's. The next time you're wondering how someone could be smart enough to program an operating system and yet make it baffling for others to use, you'll have your answer.

There's more, and I can recommend this book not only for parents of children "on the spectrum" but for anyone who has a friend or colleague with autism/aspbergers. Or, at the risk of sounding cliche, if you read only one book on the subject, this is it!

This excellent book, written by Temple Grandin, a Ph.D with an autistic spectrum disorder, is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand autism/Asperger's Syndrome, and for any parent who wants to maximize their ASD's child's potential for success - as an ASD adult. This book, however, is not about "curing" autism.

For that reason, I didn't enjoy Temple Grandin's writings years ago, when my now 11 year old son was first diagnosed with ASD. I didn't want to hear about a successful adult autistic person, I wanted to hear about adults and children who had been CURED of their autism.

Back then I believed that autism could be cured. I'd set goals - "he'll learn to talk, then he'll be fine." "I'll mainstream him in kindergarten, then he'll be fine." "I'll set up playdates for him, then he'll be fine." All these goals helped significantly, but he still has autism.

He'll always have autism. He is very intelligent, very "high functioning", but he looks at, and perceives the world in such an "Aspie" way. And now that I've fully accepted that, I want to know how to help him have a full, meaningful, and productive life.

The book is a collection of short, insightful essays grouped under various headings, such as "Diagnosis and Early Intervention", "Teaching and Education", "Adult Issues and Employment", and so on.

Grandin really hammers home the importance of early intervention, of getting an ASD child to connect to the real world. She doesn't insist on certain interventions such as ABA or Floor Time, as much as she insists on keeping the child tuned in at least 40 hours a week.

She also insists on high expectations, even for young children who may be non-verbal. Non-verbal does not mean unintelligent - she describes the fascinating story of Tito, a non-verbal austic man who can type for short focused bursts and thereby provide glimpses into his beautiful mind.

Grandin says ASD children "need to be exposed to many different things to stimulate their continued learning in different areas of life. There also need to be expectations for proper social behaviors....my mother made me do a number of things I did not like, but these activities were really beneficial."

The book includes a number of essays on strategies for motivating kids, enhancing problem solving and flexibility, and coping with the numerous sensory issues that people with ASD must contend with.

And Grandin writes extensively on the importance of obsessions - how they can be harnessed as motivating factors, used to expand learning in other areas, become channels for friendships, and so on. But on the other hand, it is perfectly acceptable to limit the time a child spends on his/her obsession because it can also become a distraction from learning other necessary skills.

She also discusses behavior issues, and how behavior doesn't occur in a vacuum - it is the end result of an interaction between a child and his/her environment, including the people in it. So she says that if a child's behavior is horrible, that parents may need to change their own behavior first before they change their child's behavior, a la Jo Frost the supernanny. In addition, bad behaviors need consistent and meaningful discipline.

The book also includes chapters on socialization, drug therapies (she has taken an antidepressant for over 25 years), and employment. I found all of these chapters extremely interesting, particularly the one on employment. Many intelligent ASD adults have problems holding jobs. She feels that is more true nowadays than it was years ago - she has worked with many older people she classifies as ASD. She believes this trend is directly related to modern parenting.

She emphasizes how important it is for high functioning ASD kids to get used to doing things they don't want to do. "As I see it, some of the problems these teenagers and adults exhibit - being constantly defiant and not doing what the boss tells them -- goes back to not learning as children that compliance is required in certain situations. They never learned when they were six or eight that sometimes you have to do things that parents want you to do, such as going to church or having good table manners. You may not have liked it, but you still did it."

As a parent, it is 10 times more difficult to teach your ASD child an appropriate behavior than it is your typically developing child, but it is also 10 times more important. My daughter can accidentally break a rule, then read the situation and explain/apologize whatever is necessary to diffuse the situation. My ASD son can't do this -- he is his own worst enemy sometimes, because he lacks that ability to read others and see which response is the most appropriate, and so he inadvertently escalates things. He needs explicit social skills training.

Grandin is incredibly blunt, too, about the role parents have in getting their kids ready for the world. "Parents hold primary responsibility in making sure their children learn basic skills that will allow them to function within society as adults. This may sound harsh, but there's just no excuse for children growing into adults who can't do even basic things like set a table, wash their clothes, or handle money. We all make choices in our lives, and choosing to make the time for a child with Asperger's to learn functional skills should be at the top of every parent's priority list."

Grandin should be forgiven for not empathizing, at least a little, with the challenges facing parents who are raising a child/children with ASD, and possibly other children as well, and all of the other pressing and valid demands of modern life. She is writing on behalf of KIDS with autism, after all. And her point still remains incredibly valid -- as difficult and challenging as our children can be sometimes, we OWE it to them to give them the life skills they need to cope and deal with the real world.

In order to make them receptive to learning, we may have to address the sensory issues and anxiety issues first, through SI integration, diet, therapy, medication, etc... - but we still have to figure out how to teach them. We can't give up on them, or leave them to the experts, we have to keep trying, so that they, too, will keep trying.

Temple Grandin is quoted in the introduction as saying "I'm the person I am today because of all the experiences I've had, and the opportunities those experiences offered me to learn, little by little. It wasn't easy; sometimes it was really difficult. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I just kept going until I got it right. And I'm still learning today! That's what I want other people on the spectrum to learn: You just can't give up. You have to keep trying."

Well anyway, I love this book for giving me some real insight into what I need to do to help my son be an independent, fulfilled adult. Highly recommended.

This book is very good. I took about a week to read it. I have already highlighted 8 or 10 areas that really struck me as useful to go back to. I am a Special Education teacher in a public school district. I have taken numerous classes, courses, lectures....etc....on the autism spectrum. I am not an expert, just a person trying very hard to understand my elementary students, many who are autistic. About 5 years ago I started noticing more growth in the autism spectrum. More of my special need students were also labeled autistic.

Dr. Temple Grandin's book validates lots things I have seen in my classrooms. I have already talked to a fellow Life Skills teacher at my school and recommended Dr Grandin's book. And last Thursday (after reading one cool section in the book), I applied one of the ideas that Dr. Grandin suggested with one of my third grade severely autistic, partially speech impared student. He responded like I wished, participated in my math exercise game AND did all the exercise correctly. All I can say is WOW.

This is a book written by an autistic person with a successful life story to tell....she has a PhD. She has written other books....I have only read this one. I plan to look into her others. It is a neat way to look at this spectrum.

My youngest son (who just turned 9 on September 14th) was always wired differently. He could drink (even formula or breast milk) without pain. He had to be taught how to chew and swallow. He had sensory integration issues which would cause erratic behavior. This behavior made it nearly impossible for him to be in mainstream preschool classrooms because the pre-K teachers didn't know how to deal with him. They just thought he was a violent brat and that we were bad parents.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago. I get in my car and there is a story on NPR. They are talking to a woman who's 6th grade son diagnosed with Asperger's and who was placed in a self-contained special ed classroom for middle school was placed in handcuffs on the 2nd day of school because the teacher felt he was being "disruptive" and speaking out of turn (common for Asperger's and Autism-spectrum disorders). The story sent shivers down my spine. This was in MY school district and MY son would be going to middle school in 1.5 years. Was my son going to be hand-cuffed because he did not have the self-control of typically developing children?

I started to panic and then I started to read this book. It was the equivalent of talking me down off the ledge. When you have a child with Asperger's or some other special need, you feel so helpless. You also tend to think "if only I was a better mom..." or "If only I could make the teachers understand".

This book arms parents with the tools they need to advocate for their children. It gives them something tangible and authoritative and credible with which to fight stupid school system procedures which were never designed for Asperger's and autsim-spectrum kids. These kids aren't stupid. On the contrary -- they are very smart. They are just wired differently and need help processing the signals that come in. It is as if these kids have "mainframe brains" running an incomprehensible operating system (TSO) when the rest of the world is running MS Windows. Their system "makes sense" to them. But if we have to try to work with it, we are totally lost. You can't just click on an ICON and make something happen -- you have to go through a command interface and be very specific and clear (sorry for the computer geek references)

The other invaluable thing about this book is that it gives you hope. As a parent, you need to believe that your child can grow up to be a happy healthy adult. You need to believe that all the struggle will pay off. Because the author HAS Asperger's and is so successful, well-adjusted, and intelligent -- you know that everything will be ok.

This book drives home the point that children with Asperger's or other autism spectrum disorders can and should be held to the same behavioral, educational and social expectations that we have for "typical children". However, *WE* have to adapt our teaching methods and our parenting skills to see the world through their eyes in order to help them understand what is acceptable and unacceptable. We have to learn to use the mainframe before we can teach our kids how to use a PC. However, if we are willing to see the world differently in order to help our children, we all win and we all will turn out just fine!

BUY 2 copies of this book -- one for yourself and one for your child's school. I really can not recommend this book highly enough. If nothing else, it will give you the pep talk you may need to get up day after day and send your child to school when you really just want to wrap them in your arms and shield them from the world.

Not being trained in the subject matter, but working at a social service non-profit that serves adults with developmental disabilities, I've had an interest in autism / Aspergers syndromes.

This book seemed to me very accessible and full of real-world examples that illustrate the perils and pitfalls of Autism and Aspergers, as well as strategies for training or redirecting, helping to integrate auties and aspies into activities, how to try to understand the source of behaviors.

I ended up skimming / reading the entire book in one evening. I found it both enjoyable and informative. I'd say that anyone in social work, anyone with a child with autism / Aspergers, or anyone providing supports to persons with autism spectrum disorder should read this book. It's quite good.

This book is, for the most part, a compilation of Grandin's articles from Autism Asperger's Digest. That makes it uniquely easy to read and access just the parts that are relevant to parental or educator questions of the moment.

But it is Grandin, too, that makes reading this simple. She doesn't try to address more than a tired brain can wrap around at one time. Her voice is calm and matter-of-fact, not overly scholarly. It's a book that can be handed to anyone to help them understand autism spectrum disorders better. It will help them understand that people on the spectrum have magnificent strengths as well as challenges; that they are capable of shouldering personal and societal responsibility, with help and mentoring -- just like anybody else.

I've read 2 of Temple Grandin's previous books (Emergence and Thinking in Pictures). This book, which I understand is a collection of articles she's written in recent years, gives yet more insight into autism and asperger's from a 1st person perspective. I'm a 33 year old man who has many things in common with Temple, including my own autism/asperger's, being content with and at peace with remaining single as an adult, having to cope with harassment/bullying from other children in school growing up, and having difficulties with making friends growing up as well. In 5th grade I was placed in a special ed class for that school year. In my case, having visual aids to help me learn things and, when growing up, having gentle prodding from my parents and teachers would help me stop daydreaming and concentrate on schoolwork or other things I had to give my attention to. Like Temple the world has always been difficult for me to understand. But in recent years I've been receiving help with overcoming my disability via an agency in my hometown that's part of the NC state UNC system. Dr. Grandin's books have really helped me understand myself better.

I became interested in autism when a friend's child was diagnosed. The first book I picked up was Temple's Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism which ended up frustrating me because it seemed so narrowly anecdotal that it seemed useless for generalizations. However, as I dug deeper into ASD I started realizing the universally shared traits she was describing and the value she brings by being able to articulate them. I also realized that each individual's autism is anecdotal and not a cut and dry pigeonhole.

I have now read quite a few books on Autism and I was glad to see that Temple has released a new book so I could read her writings again as a somewhat more informed reader. Reading through the chapter headings, the book seemed to answer many of the specific questions I had, so I ordered a copy. I was very impressed by what I found.

Let me throw out the one knock I have for this book since everything else is glowing. The book is a collection of articles Temple wrote for an Autism journal. They do not seem to have been edited to flow together, although they are grouped loosely by topic. Each chapter is a gem in of itself, but it makes for somewhat disconnected reading, when reading cover to cover.

Temple's voice carries power in her themes of education, socialization, and adults with ASD. She seems to challenge both the people with autism and their families by pointing out that with expectations need to be high. She still relies heavily on her own experiences to explain the importance of pressing education. She explains how important her early educators were as well as their use of turn based activities and the way they pushed her into broadening experiences.

The other two sections I found fascinating were her articles on behavior and adults with ASD. Her tips for going to college and landing a job for someone with ASD are frank and practical.

This ended up being a fantastic book. Read through the chapter headers. It is unlikely you won't find a few that directly address questions or concerns you have.

I've read several of Dr. Temple Grandin's books, and each offers valuable insight into the minds of people on the autism spectrum. Her latest book, The Way I See It, is a collection of short essays which are written in Grandin's signature no-nonsense style. The topics cover a broad range, from diagnosis and early intervention (Temple stresses that early is extremely important!) to adult issues and employment. Many adults diagnosed with autism or Asperger's have difficulty getting or keeping a job. Temple's advice is to encourage the individual to acquire specific marketable technical skills and perhaps look into a "back door" into a position through a technical person and not the human resources office. In between these chapters, the author speaks on socializing, medications, education, and the latest research. She's a terrific advocate for people with spectrum disorders, especially children. She frequently shares examples from her own life to illustrate her points.

This book is best for people who already have some familiarity with autism and Asperger's Syndrome. It assumes a basic level of knowledge, and will be useful to parents and care providers as well as people who themselves have autism.