April is Autism Awareness Month. The always-insightful blogger who is Blest With Sons talks about her family’s recent forays into poetry, from which she suggests that poems are best for the Asperger kids with which you’ve been blessed. It’s called Rhyme Time and features Mr. Milne—again.
Interesting reading on autism:
A Guardian article about literature and autism.
Autismland, a blog by Kristina Chew, mother of Charlie who is autistic.
Books I Have Read about Autism:
Dibs, In Search of Self by Virginia Axline
Nobody Nowhere by Donna Wiliams
A Child Called Noah by Josh Greenfield
Son-Rise by Neal Kaufman
I’m not necessarily recommending any of these books. Some of them are quite out-dated according to the autism websites I looked at. However, if anyone wants to recommend a narrative account (no textbooks) about autism or Asperger’s that you think I might learn from, feel free.
I think I’m fascinated with “autismland” and with other mental differences (the OCD of Monk, for instance) partly because it is by looking at the edges of normality that we define what is normal in the first place. Autism experts talk about the “autism spectrum” and being “on the spectrum” as if there’s a continuum that encompasses autism and Asperger’s and similar personalities, a continuum that can be mapped and understood and defined and contained. Can the human mind be understood in these terms? Is “normal” just another place on the “spectrum”? Are autistic persons missing something, or do they have something extra like the extra chromosome in Down’s syndrome? Are autistic behaviors abnormalities that need to cured, or differences that need to be celebrated?
I don’t claim to know much about the whole subject, but I’m definitely interested.
Thanks for the link to the Guardian article. Very interesting. I’m unsure how much to encourage my 15-year-old son with high-functioning autism (probably Asperger’s) to read the lit about it. His teacher recommended a book for him called Freaks, Geeks and Asperger’s that she said was helpful for kids’ understanding; other kids had liked it. She thought I would like Songs of the Gorilla Nation, written more for parents. We haven’t read either yet, tho.
I’ve read a number of books on autism over the last 13 years–the best were by Temple Grandin, one of the most successful and well-known adults with “full-blown” autism. I read both Emergence: Labeled Autistic and Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports From My LIfe With Autism. They were so helpful to “get inside” an autistic person’s head and see how differently they view the world. I think she would say, “Yes and yes” to your last question: she takes meds to help her cope with her autism, but also uses her autistic sensibilities in her unique, almost self-created, job as a “livestock designer.” (The Wikipedia article about her is a good summary–don’t know how to link to it here tho.) I bet you’d enjoy her books–I found them fascinating.
The “continuum” is a misleading term, I agree–we’ve known kids with an identical diagnosis who had strengths and weaknesses exactly opposite our son’s. He is “typical” in some areas, but atypical in others. We’re blessed that he’s high-functioning and relational. He has no savant-like abilities that we’ve identified yet, other than amazing creativity. (I keep wondering what God will do with that!) But he can’t tell time or handle money or do simple math–and a friend at church, one year older, with the exact same diagnosis, was the National Math Counts competition winner a couple years ago–and he can’t follow the plot of a movie or fiction book to save his life! He loves to read rule books for games tho, and watch sports–it’s all about the numbers and stats for him. Same diagnosis…sooooo different.