Through the Eyes of Aliens: A Book About Autistic People

Rating:
Summary: Praise from another author
Review: As an autistic man myself, with a published autobiography, I should like to take this opportunity to recommend, in the strongest possible terms, this, another book from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. It is "Through the Eyes of Aliens" by Jasmine Lee O'Neill.

I had ordered a copy for myself because, I must admit, the title fascinated me. (It correlated with a major point that I made in my own book.) It turned out to be the most rewarding purchase I have made in I don't know how long.

In reading it, I was, at first, conscious of many differences in the view of autism between her and me. Then, as I read on, I realized that it was a difference only in perception, not in substance. We saw the same thing, but from different standpoints. Yet, although we had written independently (I had never heard of her until I saw her announcement in the catalogue next to mine), my mind boggled at how many of the same observations we made, even, at times, to using the same words.

Our writing styles may be quite different, but I attribute that to the fact that, whereas I am a mathematician, she is a poet. I tend to do a logical development of ideas to get to a point, and I categorize a great deal. I seem to ask, "Where might I be wrong? If so, show me." Her approach is much more intuitive, but she often makes a point (very briefly, through her choice of words) that I go through substantial analysis to make, but she does so in a more vivid manner than I could. A typical response to her might be, "Who couldn't agree with that?" On more than one occasion, my response was the greatest adulation that one writer can give to another: "I would have loved to have written that."

Another difference of note is that my realization of being autistic is something I have come to quite recently, while she seems to have always known of that in herself. I often talk of my discovery as being "liberating". However, that is mostly in finding out why I could never find the right size round hole for myself, and, as a result, at long last, of being able to start digging my own square hole. She obviously experiences a joy in being as she is, in a way that I might not have enough years left to achieve. She also, unlike myself, has been able to develop many specific nuts-and-bolts suggestions on how the non-autistic (especially parents) can and should relate to the autistic, while I mostly deal in overviews and generalities geared to giving insights (which is a specialty of the mathematician), leaving such details to the parents themselves.

A major point that she makes, better than anyone, is that autistic people have the capability of making their lives beautiful, if they are only allowed to be what they are.

I should like to wrap this up by saying a bit more about her approach and about her writing style. First, her book is not autobiographical. Mine had to be, because I related my discovery to previously unexplained things in my past life. Yet, in reading many of the things that she wrote, I was able to increase my insights into myself. In addition, from the feedback that I have gotten from the parents of autistic kids, my book has helped to put their minds at ease about their kids. Her book should put their hearts at ease.

For those involved with autistic people, or those who simply want to know more about this misunderstood disability, Jasmine's book is required reading.

Rating:
Summary: finally, autism seen as beautiful
Review: Finally, there is a book written which describes autism as positive, as something beautiful. I am autistic, and have been waiting a long time for someone to say, in print, that I am acceptable as who I am. In a world where autism is usually (even by many autistics) considered a "defect", this is highly unusual and highly necessary.

O'Neill explains autism as not meaning that a person is defective, but about being a different kind of person. She says that autistic people should not be forced to appear like non-autistic people, and that we should be respected as our own people. She even states, in her chapter on communication, that autistic people should never be forced to speak. This affected me personally, because speech is very difficult for me, and I had always been told that it was the best and only way to communicate. She talks very poetically about the beauty of living as an autistic, a beauty which I have never before seen so well described in words.

In her epilogue directed toward autistics, she urges autistics to not forget who they are, and to take pride in who they are and in being autistic. This is a very important message, because autistics are told from almost all other sources that there is something wrong with us.

I now carry this book everywhere with me. It is the only concrete object I have which tells me that it is good to be autistic -- good to be myself.

This book is very important, because it says that autistics have a right to be who we are, and a right to be autistic, unobstructed by "therapies" which seek to make us look more normal. It eloquently captures the beauty inherent in autism, like nothing else I have read.

Rating:
Summary: Accurate information from the source.
Review: I am Autistic, and I love this book. Autism is not a condition, it is a personality type. This book succeeds in making that point. This book is all about acceptance of the Autistic individual, a refreshing change from books about eradicating Autism from the face of the earth. I would also recommend "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau. I believe that it is another book about how an Autistic person views the world. It is of my own opinion that I think he was Asperger's Syndrome.

Rating:
Summary: A view into my sons world
Review: Ms. O'Neill gave me a chance to see and feel some of the things my beautiful 6 year old son does. He is Autistic and truly a gift. The words to thank Ms. O'Neill for this opportunity of letting this "big worlder" inside my sons private world, escape me. I had highlighter ready and used it often. I will refer back to many passages for years to come.
I was unable though, to give this the highest rating due to the very personal experiences and generalization of them for all autistics the author gave. I felt the authors pain from past discriminations and crule treatment especially in a public school setting. My son is now in 1st grade and fully mainstreamed. He is obviously different to the other children. The kids in his kindergarten class last year and now in 1st grade are nothing but affectionate, kind, patient and understanding. I do not feel it is wrong to mainstream some Autistics. They are individuals and each situation is unique. What is good for one may not be for another.
I also believe this book may not be for the parent of a newly diagnoised child especially if the child is very young. There are portions of the book that are hard to handle for even the experienced parent like myself. What I mean by "handle" is Ms. O'Neills statements that lead me to think she is totally against any intervention at all. While some parents might be looking for the "cure", which in my opinion is pointless and also is denying your childs special gifts , others want to help their child learn to deal with the big world around them. Our goal should be to find a balance. We should give them all chances of being able to cope with life, possibly become independent and to rejoice in who they are and what a gift they are to us and the world.
I encourage you to read this book, though I caution any reader who might not understand this is one persons experiences and may not reflect all Autistics lives.

Rating:
Summary: A view into my sons world
Review: Ms. O'Neill gave me a chance to see and feel some of the things my beautiful 6 year old son does. He is Autistic and truly a gift. The words to thank Ms. O'Neill for this opportunity of letting this "big worlder" inside my sons private world, escape me. I had highlighter ready and used it often. I will refer back to many passages for years to come.
I was unable though, to give this the highest rating due to the very personal experiences and generalization of them for all autistics the author gave. I felt the authors pain from past discriminations and crule treatment especially in a public school setting. My son is now in 1st grade and fully mainstreamed. He is obviously different to the other children. The kids in his kindergarten class last year and now in 1st grade are nothing but affectionate, kind, patient and understanding. I do not feel it is wrong to mainstream some Autistics. They are individuals and each situation is unique. What is good for one may not be for another.
I also believe this book may not be for the parent of a newly diagnoised child especially if the child is very young. There are portions of the book that are hard to handle for even the experienced parent like myself. What I mean by "handle" is Ms. O'Neills statements that lead me to think she is totally against any intervention at all. While some parents might be looking for the "cure", which in my opinion is pointless and also is denying your childs special gifts , others want to help their child learn to deal with the big world around them. Our goal should be to find a balance. We should give them all chances of being able to cope with life, possibly become independent and to rejoice in who they are and what a gift they are to us and the world.
I encourage you to read this book, though I caution any reader who might not understand this is one persons experiences and may not reflect all Autistics lives.

Rating:
Summary: Delicate writing covers a revolutionary attitude
Review: This author, while she writes with crystalline and seemingly fragile prose, is absolutely uncompromising in her view that autistic people are a unique form of human being who should not be forced to conform to the standards of other people.

By this, she does not mean that autistic people should not learn, or that there are no difficulties associated with autism -- critics often read it as if she says this, but she clearly discusses autism's unpleasant side. She also clearly demonstrates ways to teach autistic people, although, like much of her book, she seems to base her details on a combination of her personal experience and some dubious but well-accepted research. There are more factual errors than it would be possible to list in a review, but this ends up not mattering much to me in the end. Most autistic authors overgeneralize about what the experience of autism is like; O'Neill is no exception to that rule.

What bothers me most about this book, however, is the view that autistic people are fragile creatures that must be shielded at all costs from the "big world". One would think, reading this, that we were all special little dolls made of porcelain. It makes me suspect that the author has experienced the horrors of being abandoned to the clutches of an uncaring and hostile world, but has not experienced the at-least-equal horrors of being overprotected to the point of imprisonment. As such, she unflinchingly advocates residential homes for autistic adolescents, and naively believes that it is possible to tell a good one from a bad one by visiting. Having been placed in a beautiful, abusive residential home as a teen, I'm forced to disagree. You can't judge a book by its cover -- as surely the delicate face on the cover of this book full of tough ideas shows -- and you can't judge a residential home by its appearance on visiting day. Thinking we could led my whole family into grief that none of us have recovered from. After experiences like that, I'm quite willing to take my chances with the abuse the "big world" could dish out -- at least in the outside world you can pack up and move on if you don't like a place.

The only other noteworthy potentially dangerous advice in the book is the author's equally naive belief that herbal remedies are automatically safer than traditional medicines. Plants can be just as poisonous as extracted chemicals, and while I have used a few herbal remedies, I used them with that knowledge in mind.

The author, who has a gentle writing style that belies the strength of her plea for acceptance, never once wavers and says, "Well, in this case autism should be cured." She doesn't believe in prolonging suffering. She believes that unusual-but-harmless things about autism -- like augmentative communication techniques and stimming -- should not be stopped in a person just because more neurotypical movements and communication styles are the social norm. She does not believe in social norms that exclude certain kinds of people, and she explains why very well.

Even among the other books that urge acceptance of autism, a person is unlikely to run across a book with such a pervasive and unswerving attitude of this kind, even in the years since its publication. This is an important book, a historic book, and a book which, if read properly, can translate to an attitude of accepting *all* autistic people as real and valid human beings as we are, and learning to teach us and learn along with us rather than force us into a mold we can never fit. It is a rare book that can cause me to discard nearly all of my misgivings about the details, but this is one of them. I would recommend reading it along with William Stillman's _Demystifying the Autistic Experience_. I would prefer to give this a 9 out of 10 stars, or 4.5 out of 5, but since there are only 5, rounding up can't hurt.

Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST AUTISM BOKS
Review: THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BECAUSE OF THE AUTHORS ATTUTUIDE. SHE IS ATISTIC HERSELF. SHE GIVES AN ACCEPTEING ATTUTUDIE. I REALLY AGREE WITH HER POINTS.