Friday, June 30, 2017

Book Review: Take Control of Asperger's Syndrome

Take Control of Asperger's Syndrome: The Official Strategy Guide for Teens With Asperger's Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disorder, by Janet Price and Jennifer Engel Fisher.

In an effort to cater to its audience, this self-help book is modeled on the concept of video game strategy guides.

The cover kind of manages the resemblance, and so does the "Contents" page that lists the chapters and the contents, but there is where the similarity ends.  The actual meat and bones of the book is not organized in any sort of reasonable "game-ify your life" fashion, sans the very last chapter.  Instead, it reads similarly to most other books on the subject, including the ever-tiresome "What is Autism" section.  I'll admit, I haven't been a teenager for an entire decade, but I found it difficult to expect the superficialness of the format to appeal to that demographic.  I defer to any teenagers that care to offer an opinion, however.

A good thing going for this book is that it's very positive.  It acknowledges the challenges that autism (or Asperger's Syndrome or NLD) presents, but doesn't guilt you about it or pity you.  Instead, it preaches and teaches self-advocacy and some of the tenets of neurodiversity.  This is admirable.  I do think the book falls into one of the common pitfalls of such books: focusing very hard on making up for weaknesses, and paying the bare minimum attention to the person's strengths.  The book does try to teach you some strengths: self-advocacy and the ability to tell people what you need and how you work is important.

A humorous (to me) point of the book was its assistive technology section.  This book was published in 2010, nine years after iPods became a thing, and... I don't know, at least five years after almost everyone younger than 20 started having cell phones.  This book... recommends technology like address books, timers, spell checkers... in separate devices.  I actually had one of the devices it recommends, a Spelling Ace, back in middle school (so, early 2000s).  It was a handheld device, like a graphing calculator, except all it did was correct spelling, suggest synonyms, and let you play simple word games.  Its entire functionality can be replicated with a smart phone and approximately two minutes on the app store.  The same goes for several other specific recommendations, including the various speech-to-text and text-to-speech programs.  Several of the recommended programs have, in fact, made the transition right onto smartphones.

My amusement aside, the recommended technology is useful.  The authors weren't off base in suggesting the categories, just the specific incarnations of those categories.  I've already mentioned the spell-checker and speech-to-text sections... but timers, calendars/planners, address books, and eBook readers are all excellently helpful tools.  And all, of course, can be found on a properly outfitted smartphone...  Perhaps it's no surprise that my generation and the newest generation are so attached to our phones.

In addition to the Assistive Technology (AT) recommendations, the book also offered intelligent advice for better organization and easier sensory experiences.  It also had a section for getting and maintaining friendships, which was review for me but would probably have been helpful in my early teens if I'd had a more normal childhood.  The section on hygiene just annoyed me, but that's probably leftover prickly feelings from my own middle school experience.  I still think people are too dependent on their eyes and others' appearances to give them information about people, and that biases them against people on the autism spectrum.  Comfy clothes that don't make the senses scream are not, after all, often the most fashionable ones.  Brushing one's teeth can be intensely unpleasant, never mind flossing.  Hair care can be another difficult sensory experience.

Read This Book If

You're on the spectrum or have NLD, and don't mind sifting through the metaphorical chaff for the grain.  This book does have useful information, but I found it somewhat annoying to read.  It's geared towards teenagers, and the specific recommendations are perhaps more appropriate to the 90s and early 00s than present day.  That said, it does have useful general recommendations.  Those flexible enough to adapt the strategies and specifics, rather than take them literally, might do well with this book. 

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