Customer Reviews

For the love of Ann

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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.

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.

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.

This is a shocking book written at a time when autism was not well understood and before many of the support services we have today. Read in that context it is more an historical account of how a parent felt and what action they took in the absence of these things, hopefully making us so much happier with whatever progress has been made in the autism field.

The assumption that abuse can cure a child of autism is a damaging one as adding PTSD to autism isn't going to cure anybody though, if the parent here is to be believed (and they have a vested interest in being believed), it clearly helped Ann to 'act normal'. But we now have so many accounts of how damaged some autistic individuals have been through being forced through survival to form a functioning facade deeply divided from the internal self (the works of Donna Williams are a good example of this, so is Pretending To Be Normal and Life Behind Glass). Is the semblance of 'cure' such an icon we would prefer to fracture the human being we seek to 'cure' to a degree they may function but be now pathologically alienated from their life? These are good questions and this book perhaps helps us raise those questions.

What is true is that achievements are the product of struggle and support, that we pull against what harms us and pull towards what respects us, so there is some validity to the idea of 'good cop, bad cop' as a motivational structure underpinning change. But this book is not like that. The mother starts out playing good cop, then turns utterly bad cop, and there is no real choice here for Ann as she chooses to survive.

It is also a fallacy that people with autism outgrow their condition. Whilst there are some, like Temple Grandin, who grew up to be re-diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, there are others who grow up to hide their autism only to later breakdown and regress as well as others who grow up to be a milder version of the autistic person they always were and those who fail to progress much at all. This is the reality and when we focus on any one autism story without contrasting it broadly with very different other accounts in the genre we only delude ourselves.

I read this book when it first came out in paperback. I was a teenager and had just read "Karen" and "With Love From Karen" by Marie Killilea, which had first sparked my interest in reading about children with disabilities.

I remember being shocked at the way the parents chose to treat Ann's autism (their tactics are certainly considered abusive today - and even back then, to some extent). But I definitely came away from the book with the feeling that the parents loved Ann very much. They were given little to no guidance on what to do - either drug her or institutionalize her - so they decided to treat her in her home. It's important to remember that this was a different time than today - autism was much misunderstood and, like many other conditions (mental illness, for example), it was considered shameful, a reflection on the family as a whole. This is a great book to read in its historical context, as part of a study of how the treatment and understanding of autism has changed over the years.

I, too (as have other reviewers), have wondered whatever happened to Ann. It would be interesting to find out.

My husband had a copy of this book saved from his childhood. I decided to read it while we were visiting his family. It is important to remember that it was written more than 30 years ago with the hope of shedding light on a very misunderstood condition. It was definitely difficult to read at times, but it helped me to understand the symptoms of autism a bit more.

You don't have to agree with the family's choices to appreciate this book. This is all a part of learning and evolving.

Anyway, I would love to know what happened to Ann since this book was written. Does anyone know?

Ann was born in 1952, the second of three children and only daughter of a middle class couple in the U.K. Her two brothers were quite protective of their sister and showed extreme tolerance of her behaviors.

From all descriptions, Ann fit the classic profile of Kanner's autism. She had unusual fears, such as the color red, fruit skins and certain meats. Ann insisted on drinking from a bottle until she was 7, smelled foods to determine if she wanted to eat them and loved to aimlessly throw sand. She was also nonverbal until she was 8.

Ann's father claimed he dreamed the word "violence" came into his mind in 1959 and that "violence" was the key to freeing Ann from autism. From that moment on, Ann, then 7 was slapped each time she screamed for no apparent reason or shied away from a usual object. For example, she feared the color red and was forced to wear red clothing and be bathed with a red sponge. Whenever she objected, she was slapped. The same held true for any other such bizarre fear she had.

Ann had her tonsils removed when she was 8, the idea being that this would help her speak more easily. Her brothers were her best teachers and would protect her from the jeering she got from classmates in the special classes she attended.

By age 14, Ann's autistic behaviors appeared to have receded to a much more socially acceptable level. By age 16, she appeared to exhibit no overtly autistic behaviors and even offered insights about what it was like having autism. She was officially prounounced "non-autistic" in 1968. This remains questionable, as Ann's verbalizations were often quite naive and she played with dolls late into her teens. She even went so far as to cut their hair to give them boyish appearances, yet insisted on giving them girl names.

Many parts of this book bothered me, such as when developmentally delayed children in a special school were called "these poor deranged children." I also think slapping is abhorrent. Nobody, not even the most self-flagellating of masochists will thank the slapper and say they "needed that." How that false image got started is anybody's good guess.

Slapping is painful and degrading and is just plain cruel. Ann's "recovery" is questionable; it sounds like she learned how to give the desired response so as to avoid further painful punishments. Donna Williams' brilliant work "Autism: An Inside Out Approach" does an outstanding job of describing autism, which is a neurobiological condition affecting communication and sensory processing as well as how certain "methods" just teach people with autism outward compliance so as to avoid further pain. I also didn't like the smug claim that this particular method works for all people with autism. Did it really work for Ann? I don't think so.

I also have doubts about the assertion that a toddler briefly mentioned in the book "became autistic" after a near-drowning incident. This whole book is a nonclinical finding, yet it is racked with questionable claims.

This book is rife with antiquated misperceptions about autism that were shocking, even for the early 1970s. For example, Ann was diagnosed as a possible psychopath! That kind of appalling misinformation about autism has proved costly to many.

It would be interesting to see an update on Ann. Although her progress was nothing short of spectacular, the methods used do seem rather questionable.