The Bottom Line
By Patty Corrigan Myers; 209 pages. Subtitle: A Family's Struggle With Autism and How They Found the Blessings
"Blessing" is a word you don't often hear used to describe autism, and it takes author Myers a while to think of her son's autism in those terms. But as the story of her son Charlie's early life, autism diagnosis, school struggles, and family acceptance unfolds, her faith leads her to accept that autism has indeed made a positive difference in the lives of all who know her son. If that faith doesn't offend you, you may find a blessing in this book, too.
Pros
- Offers simple and straightforward account of one family's autism journey.
- Features quotes from many parents with many different points of view.
- Considers the religious implications of autism, including helpful Bible verses.
- Includes index of helpful websites and glossary of common abbreviations
- Generally upbeat and inspirational reading.
Cons
- If you read a lot of autism memoirs, this one will be all too familiar.
- Offers a little practical advice, but mostly interested in telling a story.
- Those uncomfortable with open expressions of Christian faith may find that to be a drawback.
- Ditto those uncomfortable with anything other than a biomedical approach to autism.
- Ditto those uncomfortable with autism being depicted as anything less than horrific.
Description
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Something Was Just Not Right
- Chapter 2: The Day Everything Changed
- Chapter 3: Your Child Has Autism, Now What?
- Chapter 4: What About School?
- Chapter 5: Siblings Are the Best Therapists
- Chapter 6: Family and Friends Support
- Chapter 7: What Is a Blessing?
- Resources
- More Blessing Stories ...
Guide Review - Book Review: Autism Is a Blessing
From its upbeat title, Autism Is a Blessing sounds like it's going to be a cover-to-cover celebration of the positive traits of children on the spectrum. Instead, it's a fairly standard autism memoir -- tracing, as so many memoirs have before it, the life of a child from birth through early suspicious happenings through autism diagnosis through parental anguish through school skirmishes to some level of acceptance. There's no miracle cure here, just a parent's eventual realization that, God working in mysterious ways as he does, a child's autism has brought unexpected strengths and mercies to a family and a community.
Myers surrounds her story with the Bible verses that helped raise her awareness, and with the voices of other families sharing their own particular journeys of struggle and redemption. Quotes from parents and grandparents at all different stages of acceptance, and with all different theories of what autism is and how families can cope, are scattered throughout the main memoir and grouped at end of each chapter and the book itself.
The book is more interested in sharing personal experience than in offering practical advice, and there's nothing wrong with that -- sometimes, what you need more than anything, is to know that others have felt the way you do. If you're looking for that sort of sharing, and particularly if you're open to considering the ways that God may be working through your child with autism, Autism Is a Blessing may provide you with much-needed comfort and perspective.
