Solutions for Adults with Asperger's Syndrome: ... (ISBN 1592331645)

Helpful:
Being newly diagnosed with Asperger's, this book was a great guide to helping me understand the disorder. It did not, however, have much in the way of "solutions" as the title suggests. The focus was more on personality traits and challenges an Aspie might have, and very little time was spent discussing what to do about it. It is a great starting point for newly-diagnosed Aspies and their family members.

Useful and insulting at the same time:
I have AS. My wife bought me this book for Christmas. While it has some good information, I find the examples and interpretations rather insulting. The author, while a Ph.D., is a woman, and one of her interpretations of AS's difficult at communication and NT's exemplary performances is actually a classic expression of the Male/Female communication issues, where women think men should be able to miraculously figure out what a woman is really saying. I have found over the years that there are a lot of PhD's who are good at aborbing and regurgitating information and in writing, but as far as actual synthesis ability they are as lacking as everyone else. The worst interpretation is the "Theory of Mind" thing. The only people with a "Theory of Mind" have above average intelligences, whether AS or NT. Normal NT's are just as inept at being kind, considerate, understanding, compassionate and empathetic as any AS may be thought to be. They are only good at relationships with the people they already know and in the areas they have lived most. A more accurate (sorry, this is an AS thing) would be the locus of the behavioral modeling. AS have to process the details in their foreground conscious minds, NT's do it in sub-conscious specialized co-processing centers. So, NT's don't know how they know, but an effective AS has a very well developed "Theory of Mind" that they can implement to model the behavior and know what to do. But, the presented facts (from other peoples' work and theories) are useful: hyper-arousal (that's me and my insomnia (sleep study result)); differing processing centers, details vs. summarized infomation processing in the "foreground" brain centers, etc., but this stuff is available through other means. So I don't know if I would recommend this book or not.

This is for NTs. There are better books for Aspies:
After reading reviews of various books on Aspergers Adults, I can see that this book, which initially attracted me, is for "neurotypicals" (everyone else) and not for people with AS. Asperger's From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome, which is the book I ordered, is written by a person who was diagnosed Aspergers as an adult. He also works actively with the GRASP group, which provides much helpful information to those of us with Aspergers. From what I read here, this particular book asks as if Aspies need improving to belong to the human race. References remind me of how I was looked down upon when I had moved to another country, because I didn't yet speak the "code." As one reviewer here points out, maybe our "code" is as good as the NT code. But we have difficulty figuring out NT, while NTs have equal difficulty understanding us! It's interesting that so many highly intelligent and productive people have Aspergers. Are they trying to keep us down and out of the competition? That's what it has often felt like to me! I consider myself very holistic, not childish!

Solutions for Adults with Asperger's Syndrome: Maximizing the Benefits, Minimizing the Drawbacks to Achieve Success:
Solutions for Adults with Asperger's Syndrome: Maximizing the Benefits, Minimizing the Drawbacks to Achieve Success I have a 15 yo son with Asperger's Syndrome. It has been very difficult to get anyone to help him here in our small, stand-alone town. Not only that, but skimming the internet has been of little help - so much information to look through and so little information that can be of use. This book has put the information that I need to understand my son and his disability into context and understand what the diagnosis really means. Apparently, the brains of AS people have not developed completely and therefore they have certain real talents and places where they just cannot function. Because they did not have to use the part of the brain that doesn't work, they have been able to develop the parts of their brain that do work well much more so than NTs. The commonalities between most AS people is that they are socially impaired and have some problems with executive functioning - dealing with mundane day-to-day stuff. The other thing that I like about this book is the way that the publisher decided to print the book. There is lots of white space making it very easy to read. I have problems tracking across a page, so this is just right for me.

Best book on Aspergers I've read!:
This is the best and most useful book on Aspergers I have read. I was surprised to realize that I knew more than one Aspergers person! A truely useful book!