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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
how the book For the love of ann helped me,
By
This review is from: For the Love of Ann (Mass Market Paperback)
I first read the book "For the love of Ann" in early 1974. I have a handicapped son who was four at the time and I had been struggling to understand all the difficult and seemingly unfounded fears he had been displaying. Autism was not a word or condition I had heard about as all the doctors were dismisive of him, he was multiply handicapped and needed to be put away. Our whole lives changed after reading that book as for the first time in four years I was given hope. My son had many of the obsessions and behaviour patterns that were mentioned, albeit on a different level and with differnt things but the thing that struck me the most was the obvious love and desperate need to break through the barriers of their beloved daughter.The book gave me hope and a burning desire to break through into the closed box my son was in at that time and yes I used smacking and would do so again if faced with the same choice. However I also used another very effect method that worked extreemly well, I would hold him tight in my arms during one of he panic attacks and spend hours, or however long it took, holding him tight, facing his fears, until he would finally accept that whatever it was he was terrified of couldn't hurt him. It was exhausting and frightening for both of us and I was accused many times of being cruel and sadistic and was often made to question myself and my methods, but that wonderful book gave me hope and the strength to keep going. My son is 36 years old now and still displays some mild symtems of Autism when under stress, but over all, is a happy well adjusted individual who has moved mountains to have a meaningful place in society. I don't think the adverse comments made about the "Violence" Ann's parents used, to help her break free, are either helpful or constructive. Parents, of any handicapped child,in the late 1960s early 70s had very little help or understanding. They ,like me, were told to shut their children away in a home and forget them. Faced with seemingly insumountable difficulties to cope with, Ann's parents used their own intelligence and love for their daughter and found a way through that worked for them, and ultimatly for my son and me. There will always be sceptics and critics about anything that works out for the good but for me I will be eternally grateful for the Hughes family and James Copeland for helping me bring light into my sons life.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Autism - a non-clinical case study,
By Carolyn (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: For the Love of Ann (Mass Market Paperback)
A first read this book in the 1970s when I was about 16 and was very much impressed with the story of Ann. I knew nothing of Autism and didn't understand the book to be advocating a certain way of dealing with Autism, but rather promoting the story of a family that had worked to achieve so much for their daughter by integrating her into the society we live in, without medical guidance, because none was available. It was clear that the smacking was not something they really would have chosen, had another option with similar results been offered. The book itself is of its time and when I re-read it recently I could pick a whole load of faults in it. However, I was left with the impression that what her family chose for Ann was a better option than the alternative at that time - institutionalisation and sedative drugs.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A sign of its times,
By
This review is from: For the Love of Ann (Mass Market Paperback)
This book, the story of a girl growing up with autism in the fifties and sixties, is a fascinating period piece. This is not a book to read for advice in dealing with autism, since so much has changed since then and it is far too easy in retrospect to criticise the parents' actions, hindsight usually offering 20/20 vision. One should not take this book as a recommendation but as a case study from a time when autism was relatively unheard of and seldom diagnosed - Ann was diagnosed as 'a schitzophrenic and psychopath', and the only offer of the health authorities at the time was placement in a 'home'.Within this context, I consider the book to be nothing short of fascinating. Reading it for historical background would not be out of place. Autism has only recently begun to be understood, and there are plenty of other families out there who've suffered through the incomprehension (and in some cases, condamnation) of the medical and education systems. The author certainly describes the family through rose-coloured lenses, but much of the slant is attributable to the atmosphere into which the book was released; a time in which autism was considered, even by the book's author, to be a mental illness, a view which is now largely extinct. Finally, I whole-heartedly recommend the perspective this book provides as part of a course of reading on the topic of autism.
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