[.ca] The World of the Autistic Child: Understanding and ... (ISBN 0195119177)

depressing and outdated--deserves 0 stars:
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.

Take it with a grain of salf:
There was a bit of useful information in this book but it suffered from being outdated and too pessimistic in its outlook. Contrary to the author's statements, far more than 10% of autistics have the capacity to be integrated into mainstream society. Lovaas's research has the number at close to 50%. While I believe the actual figure may be somewhat lower, 30-40% seems reasonable to me. And as our knowledge and understanding of autism increases, the percentages are only going to improve. I'm also reasonably certain that parents who share the author's attitude of "there's only so much you can do, you just have to settle for less" may have a self-fulfilling prophecy on their hands. My experience as the parent of an autistic child has been continuous incremental improvement, but only in the presence of positive pressure. And that pressure has to come from both on the parents and the teachers - one or the other is not enough. The author's skepticism about the more questionable treatments for autism is well-taken. Some, such as vitamin B6, have been shown to cause serious injury. Even when they aren't dangerous, they can waste a lot of time, energy and money that could be better directed elsewhere, such as in a well-designed ABA program. I would advise parents who are about to embark on a new treatment for their children to ask if there are any well-designed studies proving it's efficacy. If not, look elsewhere.

Not my world, it ain't -- an outdated look at autism:
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.

Not a fan:
I know not every book works for everyone, but this book left me cold and hopeless after I read it. There are so many other books to read on autism to help a child - this is not one of them. Try: Let Me Hear Your Voice, Unraveling the Mystery of Autism, Biological Treatments to Autism & PDD. These book titles will provide you hope, advice and direction.

Bryna Siegel is a quack!:
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."