Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but tedious
Review: Although this was an interesting book, the author does not explain how this new "syndrome" is different from Asperger's or other Autism spectrum disorders. How she goes on and on about herself and her credentials is tiresome.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the time
Review: I found this book to be very disappointing. As a speech-language pathologist, I bought this book hoping I would find additional assistance and therapy tips for both autistic students and visual thinkers. Instead I found a book so filled with ego it was disturbing. Dr. Florance reinvented the wheel at every turn. Her techniques she used with her son have been used for years. She might have saved herself some time if she had not been too proud to accept help from others. Dr. Florance clearly illustrated throughout the book that she did not understand autistic behaviors can fall on a spectrum. Her son clearly fell in the high functioning range, such as PDD. Being autistic does not mean an individual cannot be successful in society. She was so haughty that she invented a new diagnosis for autism and specific language impaired (SLI). Her therapy for the SLI students was four hours every day, which I am sure she did not provide for free. Dr. Florance gave the impression she was better than school officials, rather than a team member. In fact, she took this book as an opportunity to make parents feel guilty for medicating their children rather than realizing she may have gotten some sleep if she had placed her pride on the shelf and accepted help and advice from other people. If you are wanting to read a good book about what it is like to grow up autistic, I recommend you read Temple Grandin's publications.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the time
Review: I found this book to be very disappointing. As a speech-language pathologist, I bought this book hoping I would find additional assistance and therapy tips for both autistic students and visual thinkers. Instead I found a book so filled with ego it was disturbing. Dr. Florance reinvented the wheel at every turn. Her techniques she used with her son have been used for years. She might have saved herself some time if she had not been too proud to accept help from others. Dr. Florance clearly illustrated throughout the book that she did not understand autistic behaviors can fall on a spectrum. Her son clearly fell in the high functioning range, such as PDD. Being autistic does not mean an individual cannot be successful in society. She was so haughty that she invented a new diagnosis for autism and specific language impaired (SLI). Her therapy for the SLI students was four hours every day, which I am sure she did not provide for free. Dr. Florance gave the impression she was better than school officials, rather than a team member. In fact, she took this book as an opportunity to make parents feel guilty for medicating their children rather than realizing she may have gotten some sleep if she had placed her pride on the shelf and accepted help and advice from other people. If you are wanting to read a good book about what it is like to grow up autistic, I recommend you read Temple Grandin's publications.
Rating:
Summary: nothing new!
Review: I just returned from the annual autism conference. I learned more about the brain and visual learning in one day there, then I learned from this entire book..I do not have a ph.d, and yet I have already implemented, read and heard every technique that was being touted in this book. Thier are visual learning workshops and techniques being employed all over the country. Not everyone with a success story should feel compelled to produce a book, unless they have something uniquely different to say. Parents cannot take one more dissapointing example of how someone succeeded where they had failed, even when they had worked just as tediously and employed the exact same teaching methods. The research indicates that even when two children with the same diagnosis are afforded the same interventions, some will succeed more then others.
Rating: 
Summary: Must Read
Review: Incredible feel good story. Am not one for sappy stories and this was my expectation going in when the book was given to me as something I must read. What Dr. Florence accomplished despite all the obstacles is truly amazing. This book will be the inspiration to change how professionals look at this affliction and an inspiration to those families similary situated. The word will spread regarding this wonderful story.
Rating: 
Summary: positive story, but not a how-to guide
Review: It is good to read this story of "recovery" from autistic-like symptoms. They give us parents inspiration and hope. I especially liked that we see the son all the way through high school when most books of this type stop at age 5. However, it was frustrating to see a mother refuse to seek outside help for her son. Dr. Florance takes on all the weight of diagnosis and treatment herself (with the assistance of her other children). Other doctors do not seem to be consulted, and there is no mention in the book of successful methods developed such as PECS, and ABA. Part of the problem may be that the crux of the story takes place 15 or more years ago, and alot of research has been done since then. Catherine Maurice's "Let Me Hear Your Voice", published in 1992 is still the book to read if you have a child that demonstrates autistic symptoms.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but dissapointing
Review: Maverick Mind is a sad story about the disruptive effect autism can have on a whole family. Striving for a healthy balance and a family life that does not revolve around a disability is difficult, but this book offers no help. It is a case study in denial. The most disturbing to me was Florance's co-opting of her older children into being parents and therapists from childhood. It seems the family rule is if you are not "fixing" Whitney, you don't count. As a speech language pathologist and audiologist, I find her arguments for the theory of rewiring the brain unconvincing. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and I am utterly unconvinced. She describes her son as being a visual genius, yet the only visual testing she reported showed him to be below age level. Her use of the terms "hearing impairment" and "deafness" were incorrect. I've spent my career working with deaf and hard of hearing children and none of them exhibit autistic behaviors. I also work with deaf children who are also autistic, and they do not learn sign language any easier than a spoken language. The problem does not lie in hearing. The author's comparison to Hellen Keller is faulty. Hellen Keller, like all deaf children, had a normal brain ready for language input. Once the connection was made, the floodgates opened and she was able to acquire language. Autistic children, including Whitney, do not have a brain primed for language and social interaction that can be tapped suddenly by finding a magic key. The progress for any child whose brain is not wired for language acquisition is slow and laborious. Florance's suggestion that her son's progress was anything different or that she has found some magic elixir to cure autism is, at best, misguided, and at worst, criminal. How many more parents are going to hope beyond hope for a magic cure to "unlock"the normal child inside their autisic one. Remember facilitated communication? Auditory integration training? How many times do we have to do this to parents? Many bright autistic people before this child have learned to talk and have been successful in school. Temple Grandin followed a very similar developmental pattern without any of the enlightened intervention strategies we utilize today. We understand today, that autism is NOT only rocking and flapping and unteachable children. Autism (autism spectrum, PDD, Asberger's syndrome) comes in many flavors, including bright children who take a few years to pull it together before they can begin to achieve success in the most basic skills of connectedness, communication and eventually academic learning. Every characteristic this young man exhibited and exhibits are typical of Asberger's syndrome. There is no need to coin any new syndrome. It is already understood and described in current literature. Florance describes inventing a visual-to-auditory training system, yet PECs which has been used for sometime to bridge children with autism into spoken communication is essentially the same its' use of pictures and images to connect to words. What's new here? Florance's ego permeates every chapter of this book to an embarrassing level. No credit is given to any of this young man's teachers or school administrators, nor to any family members (other than the siblings/therapists). Florance takes personal credit for every step of progress he made. She fights every school placement, despite the fact that he thrives in each setting and learns and grows at each place. This message of "school is enemy" is disappointing, especially from a speech language therapist. How many parents will take away from this book the idea that the only way to get good services from a school is to come in fighting? Most teachers and support staff work in schools because they have an intense drive to make a difference in their student's lives. As both a professional and a parent of a child with a learning disability, I find asking for help (albeit, sometimes more than once) and working with the school staff is an effective way of getting good help for my daughter. Despite my serious concerns, I found some amazing gems in this text. Florence gives an excellent description of how this boy was fundamentally different from her older children from the moment of birth. She offers a cogent discussion about the weaknesses of standardized testing for the purposes of designing teaching/intervention and the unhelpful nature of composite scores for children who have disparate skills. Though steeped in unhealthy denial, Florance's ability to see and celebrate her son's skills despite huge disabilities as well as the notion that these abilities can be used to teach to areas of need is a model every educator and therapist should embrace. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in autism, family dynamics in the presence of disability, and siblings of disabled children. The book has many fundamental faults, but the description of this child's development is fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: The Maverick Mind Syndrome
Review: MAVERICK MIND will steal your heart away and captivate your mind with the image of a true champion whose genius has been responsible for an extension of the envelope for us all. The correct diagnosis of a child or adult who is struggling with communication issues in listening, reading, writing or speaking may often elude prompt and accurate definition and, in turn effective treatment, given the frequent camouflage as other disorders. We have found that this may be the case in the struggling medical student who in fact has the Maverick Mind Syndrome. Once they are evaluated for processing dysfunction thereby permitting proper diagnosis, we have witnessed the potential for absolutely startling improvement with treatment. I have been associated with medicine for over thirty years and with medical education explicitly for at least half that time. Nonetheless, I am able to tell you that as a physician, a teacher and a parent, the reading of the Maverick Mind and the understanding of the truths held within have changed my life. I think this experience may well change yours as well. John M. Stang, M.D.
Powelson Professor of Medicine
Assistant Dean for Student Counseling and Tutoring
The Medical Student Advisory Center [MSAC]
The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health
Rating:
Summary: Irritating and Disappointing
Review: Our family has been lucky enough to meet Dr. Florance and her 3 children after reading her book. It not only gave faces to the names, but it was a joy to see how wonderful they are as a family. Dr. Florance's book has helped our family understand another way of looking at how our brain functions. This book is not a tutorial, however it is a window for some autistics who you know can understand everything that is said to them and can communicate in their minds, just not through their voice. My husband is a neurosurgeon who has a lifetime of not understanding how his brain worked "differently" from others, our 5 year old is gifted and absolutely a visual learner, and our 4 year old son has been diagnosed with autism and PDD since he was 2 years old. After months of different therapy that seemed to just to be going through the motions, one of our therapist brought us this book and it was like turning a light bulb on. Our son, so much like Florance's, can run a computer, a dvd player, and appears to understand everything said to him, yet cannot form correct speech. This book is for those who want to learn how their child's brain is working and then how to possibly find ways to "re-wire" or concentrate on areas to eventually bring those "pictures" to words. I would highly recommend this book for those who enjoy a heart-warming story of a mother's "gut instinct" and determination; and also for those who are looking at another way to understand how some highly visual learners and some autistics are "wired" differently.
Rating:
Summary: Straight From The Heart
Review: Straight From the Heart -- A must read for those with family members struggling with language or learning disabilities -- Dr. Florance fights conventional wisdom with intense passion and delivers a riveting story filled with a treasure trove of creative ideas in detailing how she managed to help her son,Whitney. Maverick Mind is a powerful story that will truly change peoples'lives!!!
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