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The World of the Autistic Child: Understanding and Treating Autistic Spectrum Disorders

The World of the Autistic Child: Understanding and Treating Autistic Spectrum Disorders

List Price: $16.95
Your Price: $11.87
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: As a parent of a newly diagnosed child, this was a lifesaver
Review: After having my then 4 year old diagnosed with Autism, I happened to see this book on my Library's New Titles shelve. I had listened to all the Dr. and experts and was totally confused. This book gave it to me in black and white, it told me the harsh realities and the miraculous gifts that come with Autism. I still refer everyone to this Title. Don't let the first few chapters of catagorizations scare you off the rest of the book. Hang in there it is definitely worth it!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Racist, Outdated, and Condesending
Review: As a mother with a child 'on the spectrum,' I hope the people who provide services to my son don't think of me, my son, or my family so poorly. Ms. Siegle groups all members of various ethnic groups together. "Latino Fathers," "African Grandmothers," "Asian Community," and "Immigrant Families" are all tried and judged by the author as being hysterical, judgemental, shamed, or completely clueless by their child's medical condition. While all families react to devistating news differently, the author confidently tells her readers that this is how a person is going to react. The author also LOVES the words "mental retardation" and uses it far too frequently in such a short book, perhaps this is the way she explains why her interventions fail. IQ is not the only way to judge a person Ms. Siegal. In the years since this book was written, several interventions have shown great promise, and a child labeled 'mentally retarded' may actually posess average, or above average intellegence. Her tales of the lives of autistic children and adults are nothing short of a 'shock jock' radio personality's material. EXAMPLE "So this guy, he's autistic. He can't even handle a job at K-Mart. He goes nuts every time the loud speaker goes on--then he runs out of the store screaming." The guy has Sensory Issues, you should have noticed that before putting him into a potentially difficult situation. If you are looking for the "World" of an autistic child I'd suggest a story WRITTEN BY a person with autism, not by a person passing judgement and only in 'the business' apparently to gather information for her next book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not a fan
Review: As the parent of an autistic child, I have read a number of books that overview autism and I can say with absolute certainty that this is the best of them. It is not that others are lacking, but rather that this book does exactly as the title suggests: it gives the reader a concrete sense of what autism is like from the autsitic person's perspective which, in turn, gives those who are part of the autistic person's life insight into why certain behaviors and stereotypies manifest.

That said, I feel that the salient points that have come up in much of the somewhat harsh criticism of this book must needs be addressed which, hopefully, will round out such drastically different perspectives for the prospective buyer:

First, much has been made in preceding reviews about the author's tendency to repeatedly mention that the vast population of autistic persons is, in addition to being simply autistic, mentally retarded. Such comorbidity can seem quite damning to a parent trying simply to deal with the initial diagnosis. The term 'mental retardation' carries such a stigma with Westerners. People who hear this, especially parents receiving a diagnosis, must keep in mind that mental retardation does NOT mean downs syndrome or cerebral palsy or stupidity or even a lack of intelligence. It is nothing but an indicator that the child has difficulty learning the way a typical child is capable of learning and that there are certain areas of deficit that accompany such difficulty. With an autistic child those areas of deficit are going to include difficulties with language (both expressive and receptive) and social skill acquisition. Those areas ALONE are going to tip many autistic children into an area of mental retardation. The actual intelligence of a child is irrelevent when measuring retardation. A five-year-old autistic child may very well be able to perform quadratic equations mentally, rattle off a Beethoven concerto on the piano, and single-handedly maintain a cabernet vineyard. But if that same child cannot appropriately respond to "What's your name?" when asked in repeated trial settings, there's liable to be a substantial impact in discerning whether or not there is some mental retardation to be considered. Does this child have a major deficit in some area of learning, such that it hinders their capacity to learn in a typical setting? I should say so! So I question anyone's tendency to get upset at Siegel's labelling of autistics as mentally retarded. If anything, I should think that parents doomed to spend a lifetime in IEP meetings hashing out their child's potential with, at best, a 'well-meaning' child study team would want to be keenly atuned to the areas of their child's deficits.

Secondly, Siegel's book is labelled "out of date" by its critics for its tendency to omit so many of the alternative forms of treatment available to autistic persons. I concede that there are plenty of treatments that merit vast discussion (e.g. A.I.T., chileating, mercury cleansing, gluten/casein-free diets, secretin, vitamin-B treatments) that are either under-represented here or not represented at all. I also have no doubt that many of these therapies have had wonderful results with many children.

But I happen to know that some of these interventions have had no effect on autistic children whatsoever, while others have actually had damaging effects. What works for one autistic child will not necessarily work for another, and given the tendency for autistic persons to be highly susceptible to placebo effect (given the fact that responses to minor alterations in the environment are a parameter of the disability itself and not merely a set clinical variable), it is very difficult to come to a conclusion as to what is effective even for one child, much less the entire autistic population. So why does she avoid mentioning these things at all?

It is important also to note that Bryna Siegel is a former student of Bruno Bettelheim who, for the uninitiated, devastated many families of autistic persons by falsifying data which supposedly reflected that autism was largely the result of unloving parents (or, "refrigerator mothers"). I point this out not to suggest that the author has any of the same sentiments whatsoever (in fact, she harnesses every opportunity to lambast Bettelheim's work and merit as a psychologist), but rather to suggest that her apparent omission of alternative therapies is very likely the voice of someone who has witnessed what happens when vast misinformation is dissemenated to caretakers of autistics. Siegel does make topical reference to the fact that many other therapies not mentioned in the text do exist, but I applaud her tactic in discussing only those that are either scientifically proven effective methods of intervention or completely harmless to the child when introduced, regardless of the efficacy of the intervention method in question.

In summary, this is an excellent book. The authors tendency to be straightforward and up-front about many issues surrounding autism is sometimes perceived as discouraging but is in no way damning to your child. If anything, I believe the author merely wants to impress upon parents, caretakers, and professionals the gravity of the issue at hand. If you fall into any of the preceding categories in relation to someone with autism, it is certainly not the only book you should read but I believe it should definitely be a part of your canon!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An excellent component of any library on autism
Review: As the parent of an autistic child, I have read a number of books that overview autism and I can say with absolute certainty that this is the best of them. It is not that others are lacking, but rather that this book does exactly as the title suggests: it gives the reader a concrete sense of what autism is like from the autsitic person's perspective which, in turn, gives those who are part of the autistic person's life insight into why certain behaviors and stereotypies manifest.

That said, I feel that the salient points that have come up in much of the somewhat harsh criticism of this book must needs be addressed which, hopefully, will round out such drastically different perspectives for the prospective buyer:

First, much has been made in preceding reviews about the author's tendency to repeatedly mention that the vast population of autistic persons is, in addition to being simply autistic, mentally retarded. Such comorbidity can seem quite damning to a parent trying simply to deal with the initial diagnosis. The term 'mental retardation' carries such a stigma with Westerners. People who hear this, especially parents receiving a diagnosis, must keep in mind that mental retardation does NOT mean downs syndrome or cerebral palsy or stupidity or even a lack of intelligence. It is nothing but an indicator that the child has difficulty learning the way a typical child is capable of learning and that there are certain areas of deficit that accompany such difficulty. With an autistic child those areas of deficit are going to include difficulties with language (both expressive and receptive) and social skill acquisition. Those areas ALONE are going to tip many autistic children into an area of mental retardation. The actual intelligence of a child is irrelevent when measuring retardation. A five-year-old autistic child may very well be able to perform quadratic equations mentally, rattle off a Beethoven concerto on the piano, and single-handedly maintain a cabernet vineyard. But if that same child cannot appropriately respond to "What's your name?" when asked in repeated trial settings, there's liable to be a substantial impact in discerning whether or not there is some mental retardation to be considered. Does this child have a major deficit in some area of learning, such that it hinders their capacity to learn in a typical setting? I should say so! So I question anyone's tendency to get upset at Siegel's labelling of autistics as mentally retarded. If anything, I should think that parents doomed to spend a lifetime in IEP meetings hashing out their child's potential with, at best, a 'well-meaning' child study team would want to be keenly atuned to the areas of their child's deficits.

Secondly, Siegel's book is labelled "out of date" by its critics for its tendency to omit so many of the alternative forms of treatment available to autistic persons. I concede that there are plenty of treatments that merit vast discussion (e.g. A.I.T., chileating, mercury cleansing, gluten/casein-free diets, secretin, vitamin-B treatments) that are either under-represented here or not represented at all. I also have no doubt that many of these therapies have had wonderful results with many children.

But I happen to know that some of these interventions have had no effect on autistic children whatsoever, while others have actually had damaging effects. What works for one autistic child will not necessarily work for another, and given the tendency for autistic persons to be highly susceptible to placebo effect (given the fact that responses to minor alterations in the environment are a parameter of the disability itself and not merely a set clinical variable), it is very difficult to come to a conclusion as to what is effective even for one child, much less the entire autistic population. So why does she avoid mentioning these things at all?

It is important also to note that Bryna Siegel is a former student of Bruno Bettelheim who, for the uninitiated, devastated many families of autistic persons by falsifying data which supposedly reflected that autism was largely the result of unloving parents (or, "refrigerator mothers"). I point this out not to suggest that the author has any of the same sentiments whatsoever (in fact, she harnesses every opportunity to lambast Bettelheim's work and merit as a psychologist), but rather to suggest that her apparent omission of alternative therapies is very likely the voice of someone who has witnessed what happens when vast misinformation is dissemenated to caretakers of autistics. Siegel does make topical reference to the fact that many other therapies not mentioned in the text do exist, but I applaud her tactic in discussing only those that are either scientifically proven effective methods of intervention or completely harmless to the child when introduced, regardless of the efficacy of the intervention method in question.

In summary, this is an excellent book. The authors tendency to be straightforward and up-front about many issues surrounding autism is sometimes perceived as discouraging but is in no way damning to your child. If anything, I believe the author merely wants to impress upon parents, caretakers, and professionals the gravity of the issue at hand. If you fall into any of the preceding categories in relation to someone with autism, it is certainly not the only book you should read but I believe it should definitely be a part of your canon!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent early read for parents
Review: Dr. Siegel is a world expert on autism and her expertise is reflected in this book. The negative reviews I've read seem to be related to issues not based on science or fact. Although Dr. Siegel doesn't sugar coat the issues and the book can be quite depressing for a hopeful parent at times it still serves a an excellent source of REAL data based on REAL science and years of actual clinical experience. She is a very sympathetic and caring care giver. I found the descriptions defining PDD-NOS and autism quite useful. A prior review mentions that much of the hope of parents is taken away as she systematically points out how activities or behaviors felt to be good are actually manifestations of autism that should be extinguished. We thought our child's hand-leading was a good sign that he was communicating needs when in reality he was using us as a tool to get what he wanted. Without that knowledge we would have likely gone on encouraging the behavior. This is a well written, albeit complex at times, book that should be an early read for any parent with a young child just diagnosed or going the the process of evaluation for PDD/autism. The author is a huge proponent of early and aggressive diagnosis and intervention.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: depressing and outdated--deserves 0 stars
Review: Dreadful book--I read this in the early days of looking for information on my daughter, and I found it depressing and unhelpful. There are a lot of books out there now that can help you help your child. This emphatically is not one of them. Read Steven Gutstein, Stanley Greenspan, and Catherine Maurice if you want to teach your child using behavioral interventions: there are so many sources online now to help parents new to the diagnosis.

She's also way too negative about the possibility for the child's improvement, and I think she condescends to both parents and autistic children. I've read much of what's out there, and this is nowhere on my list of recommended books for parents.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Take it with a grain of salf
Review: I am autistic. When I read a book titled "The World of the Autistic Child," I expect it to have at least a passing relevance to my childhood. I do not expect a lot. I do not expect the author to know exactly what I in particular was like, because every autistic person is different. I just expect some resemblance to my experience somewhere in there.

I found little to none of this. The view of autism is very narrow, the writing near-obsessed with categorizing different autistic people into different diagnoses (the author's second book, while it retains some of the faults of this one, at least abandons that practice). For instance, it describes Temple Grandin as a woman with "PDD", apparently unable to acknowledge her as a "true" autistic. The prognoses are as narrow as the diagnoses.

Much of the book gets stuck on these outdated, narrow-minded views of autism, often to an intricate level of detail, and then misinterprets most of them. It apparently carries this off well enough that people think it's giving them a glimpse into the autistic mind. I've got nothing against non-autistic people trying to do that, if they carry it off well, but in comparison to this book, even the least insightful, most overgeneralizing autistic person's writing would be an improvement. At least it would have some basis in *someone's* internal experience of autism. Then, after coming to strange conclusions based on narrow and warped data, the author comes out with a gloomy set of predictions that mirror what I've heard of her real-life comments to parents.

This book would have done better to call itself a study on autism from the outside, without claiming to know anything about our "worlds" ("world" is a fashionable term for the autistic mind, it seems). It's clear that the author has almost no insight there. I've heard parents claim that the book gives them insight into their child's mind, but like the other book by this author, I find it very likely that an ability to describe autistic people in detail is easily mistaken for an ability to understand autistic people. The former, this book is good at (even within the narrow descriptions). The latter, barely, if at all.

If you want to get some real information on autism, try _The Autistic Spectrum: A Parents' Guide to Understanding and Helping Your Child_ by Lorna Wing. It may contain numerous inaccuracies, but it has more basis in our "worlds" and our reality than _The World of the Autistic Child_, and provides information that is both more practical and more hopeful for parents, who are the main audience of both books. Even _Helping Children With Autism Learn_, Bryna Siegel's second book, is an improvement over this one, although I would hardly recommend it for its stated purpose.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not my world, it ain't -- an outdated look at autism
Review: I am autistic. When I read a book titled "The World of the Autistic Child," I expect it to have at least a passing relevance to my childhood. I do not expect a lot. I do not expect the author to know exactly what I in particular was like, because every autistic person is different. I just expect some resemblance to my experience somewhere in there.

I found little to none of this. The view of autism is very narrow, the writing near-obsessed with categorizing different autistic people into different diagnoses (the author's second book, while it retains some of the faults of this one, at least abandons that practice). For instance, it describes Temple Grandin as a woman with "PDD", apparently unable to acknowledge her as a "true" autistic. The prognoses are as narrow as the diagnoses.

Much of the book gets stuck on these outdated, narrow-minded views of autism, often to an intricate level of detail, and then misinterprets most of them. It apparently carries this off well enough that people think it's giving them a glimpse into the autistic mind. I've got nothing against non-autistic people trying to do that, if they carry it off well, but in comparison to this book, even the least insightful, most overgeneralizing autistic person's writing would be an improvement. At least it would have some basis in *someone's* internal experience of autism. Then, after coming to strange conclusions based on narrow and warped data, the author comes out with a gloomy set of predictions that mirror what I've heard of her real-life comments to parents.

This book would have done better to call itself a study on autism from the outside, without claiming to know anything about our "worlds" ("world" is a fashionable term for the autistic mind, it seems). It's clear that the author has almost no insight there. I've heard parents claim that the book gives them insight into their child's mind, but like the other book by this author, I find it very likely that an ability to describe autistic people in detail is easily mistaken for an ability to understand autistic people. The former, this book is good at (even within the narrow descriptions). The latter, barely, if at all.

If you want to get some real information on autism, try _The Autistic Spectrum: A Parents' Guide to Understanding and Helping Your Child_ by Lorna Wing. It may contain numerous inaccuracies, but it has more basis in our "worlds" and our reality than _The World of the Autistic Child_, and provides information that is both more practical and more hopeful for parents, who are the main audience of both books. Even _Helping Children With Autism Learn_, Bryna Siegel's second book, is an improvement over this one, although I would hardly recommend it for its stated purpose.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bryna Siegel is a quack!
Review: I am sorry, but I checked out this book from the library a few days after my son was diagnosed and it made me sick! Fortunately I also checked out Facing Autism by Lynn Hamilton and also other more current books on the subject! Bryna Siegel is no expert. She only has a masters degree and could not treat children if she wasn't a professor at a university. She has done more damage for children with autism than she has ever helped them. She has said that because ABA is so expensive, if your child doesn't have a marked improvement in the first 4 to 6 weeks, you should try something else. I think that is a bit too black and white. She also says that parents are quick to blame the program if their child is not improving. Well, Dr. Vincent Carbone says, if your child isn't learning, look at your teaching method. "Children with autism are not learning disabled, they are teaching challenges!!"

Finally, school districts LOVE to pay Bryna to testify on their behalf against parents who want an ABA program for their kids. That should tell you something! Bryna Siegel is a self- promoting "know it all."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Again: The first book you should read on Autism.
Review: I am the father of a 4-year-old with PDD. Summary Review of This Book: We bought a copy for his therapists. We bought a copy for his school. We recommend it as the first book to other parents. We loan it to our friends. ---msb


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