Beyond Rain Man: What One Psychologist Learned Raising a Son on the Autism Spectrum, by Anne K. Ross.
I should probably watch the movie referenced by this book's title, but given how poorly it describes autism and Asperger's, I've kind of avoided it out of resentment. That's probably foolish of me, since even an inaccurate portrayal served to publicize the diagnosis.
Anyway, in actual regards to this book, it's more or less what it says on the tin: the story of a mother raising her autistic son. Unlike many of these accounts, this particular account is honest and forthright in a manner I can only describe as "brutal." The author and her son struggled mightily with the family dynamic and behavior, and if you read this book, you will understand that struggle quite well. The author does not sugar coat her descriptions of herself, intent on showing you how she made her decisions, why, and what worked and what didn't. Such brutal honesty is very unusual in our culture, and not entirely pleasant to read in this case, since raising a child is a great, complicated affair with many ups and downs.
Another major feature of this book is its organization. There are subject-related chapters, and the book does sort of progress from birth to college age, but in truth, I would call the organization more "stream of consciousness" than I would anything else. She makes efforts to keep you cognizant of where you are in the timeline, but skips back and forth between ages. I may just be very bad at those kinds of jumps, but I found myself confused and lost more than once. I don't particularly have a good solution to that, since trying to shoehorn everything that happened at age 10, age 12, age 15, etc, gets to be very stilted and invites a different kind of disorganization.
Something that caught my attention was a section I can no longer locate in the book, where the author insists she isn't on the autism spectrum for various reasons, not the least of which is that she craves change in life sometimes and loves people. I found her reasons somewhat flawed, and suspect that while she might not qualify for a diagnosis (since she seems to be running her life okay, thus no impairment to qualify), she is still on the autism spectrum. Liking people and requiring change may not be entirely normal for the autism spectrum, but they aren't unheard of either. Also, her most prominent example to compare from is her son, and autism can affect women differently than men. There's an entire Reddit subforum devoted to that, and while I haven't yet done a ton of reading on the subject, I wouldn't be surprised if the author has sufficient numbers of traits to qualify for at least Honorary Autistic.
The last thing I wanted to point out was a list of notes the author took from a useful lecture she attended on Asperger's. If you have the same book I do here, it starts on page 222 and spills onto the next page. There were many useful things, but three in specific I wanted to point out.
I should probably watch the movie referenced by this book's title, but given how poorly it describes autism and Asperger's, I've kind of avoided it out of resentment. That's probably foolish of me, since even an inaccurate portrayal served to publicize the diagnosis.
Anyway, in actual regards to this book, it's more or less what it says on the tin: the story of a mother raising her autistic son. Unlike many of these accounts, this particular account is honest and forthright in a manner I can only describe as "brutal." The author and her son struggled mightily with the family dynamic and behavior, and if you read this book, you will understand that struggle quite well. The author does not sugar coat her descriptions of herself, intent on showing you how she made her decisions, why, and what worked and what didn't. Such brutal honesty is very unusual in our culture, and not entirely pleasant to read in this case, since raising a child is a great, complicated affair with many ups and downs.
Another major feature of this book is its organization. There are subject-related chapters, and the book does sort of progress from birth to college age, but in truth, I would call the organization more "stream of consciousness" than I would anything else. She makes efforts to keep you cognizant of where you are in the timeline, but skips back and forth between ages. I may just be very bad at those kinds of jumps, but I found myself confused and lost more than once. I don't particularly have a good solution to that, since trying to shoehorn everything that happened at age 10, age 12, age 15, etc, gets to be very stilted and invites a different kind of disorganization.
Something that caught my attention was a section I can no longer locate in the book, where the author insists she isn't on the autism spectrum for various reasons, not the least of which is that she craves change in life sometimes and loves people. I found her reasons somewhat flawed, and suspect that while she might not qualify for a diagnosis (since she seems to be running her life okay, thus no impairment to qualify), she is still on the autism spectrum. Liking people and requiring change may not be entirely normal for the autism spectrum, but they aren't unheard of either. Also, her most prominent example to compare from is her son, and autism can affect women differently than men. There's an entire Reddit subforum devoted to that, and while I haven't yet done a ton of reading on the subject, I wouldn't be surprised if the author has sufficient numbers of traits to qualify for at least Honorary Autistic.
The last thing I wanted to point out was a list of notes the author took from a useful lecture she attended on Asperger's. If you have the same book I do here, it starts on page 222 and spills onto the next page. There were many useful things, but three in specific I wanted to point out.
"For a person with Asperger's, the overriding priority may be to solve a problem rather than satisfy the social or emotional needs of others."This is often true. This is definitely true with me. I have learned to consider other peoples' social and emotional needs to also be problems, and therefore I try to take care to satisfy those things in addition to solving whatever other problems may be in evidence. It's hard to put yourself in someone else's place, so I do a lot of thinking and data collection on a regular basis when those things are involved.
I don't recall having trouble with this, but Temple Grandin did, the author's son here did, and it's not an uncommon issue in various "my life with autism" books I've read. Between oversensitivity in skin and simply not viewing hugs as a comforting/intimate thing, it's not necessarily natural for us to give and receive hugs or repeat over and over that we love someone. Teach this.
"People with Asperger's must be taught that 'neurotypicals' need to be told they're loved and need to be hugged."
I think I spent most of my teenage years angry and miserable, and didn't have much in the way of temper tantrums, but I'm getting some unwanted experience with it now. Why now, I have no idea. Anyway, it really is like everything in your world fades out except the one thing that's making you angry/frustrated/upset. Vastly unpleasant. I'm working on dealing with that in ways that aren't destructive or self-destructive, but it's very hard.
"Emotions often flood people with Asperger's, sort of like a panic attack, so they may overreact to negative experiences."
Read This Book If
You want a really honest narrative about raising an autistic son. If you have a background in health care or psychology, the author can also show her you pitfalls so you can avoid them yourself. If you're a parent, I suspect you'll see some of yourself and your child in these pages, and you'll hopefully find useful the tips and tricks that the author finally puts forth as "what works."
This was a very interesting read, I learned a lot! Thanks for the breakdown of the book.
ReplyDelete