By Bryna Siegel, PhD; 280 pages. Subtitle: An Expert's Guide to Treatment.
More a guide to finding a treatment approved of by the author than an examination of all treatments out there, Getting the Best for Your Child With Autism will probably appeal most to those with young children and recent diagnoses, who have not yet had time to open the Pandora's box of websites and parent support groups and special diets and insufficiently research-based options. Those who have cast their net wider and found things of value may feel insulted by the author's flip and dismissive remarks.
- Gives useful overview of learning problems for children with autism
- Outlines several of the more research-supported therapies
- Offers good advice on what to request from schools and how to get it
- Presents a thoughtful plan for helping your child while keeping things in perspective
- Author provides a calm voice of experience to parents who may be confused and vulnerable
- Parents who are less confused and vulnerable may that voice insultingly authoritarian
- No information on, nor respect for, biomedical treatments
- Dismissive and a little flip about therapies and practitioners that don't meet certain standards
- Takes a dim view of anything found on the Internet outside a few major sites
- Probaby best for parents of young children or the newly diagnosed
- Part I: Mapping the Road to the Best Treatment
Chapter One: Off to a Good Start - Chapter Two: Getting Your Footing
- Chapter Three: Setting a Course
- Part II: Outfitting Yourself to Help Your Child
Chapter Four: The Balanced Family - Chapter Five: Becoming an Informed Consumer
- Part III: Putting It Together
Chapter Six: Learning Deficits, Learning Styles - Chapter Seven: Core Treatments for Autism
- Chapter Eight: The Customized Course
- Part IV: On the Road
Chapter Nine: Navigating the Legal Byways - Chapter Ten: Sharing the Driving
Resources
Index
It must be frustrating to be an autism Expert these days. Anyone with a website or a theory can falsely lay claim to "expert" status. Quacks and snake-oil salesmen seem poised everywhere to draw in unsuspecting parents. And even those parents are starting to think of themselves as experts. As much as you want to empower them and celebrate their expertise in their particular child, it's not like they have a degree in psychology or 25 years experience.
So Bryna Siegel, whose Expert credentials include being director of the Autism Clinic and co-director of the Autism and Neurodevelopment Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, sets out in this book to set us straight, and on the straight and narrow. Research-based interventions like ABA, Floortime, and RDI are recommended, as long as you don't go overboard. Biomedical interventions are not even worth discussing, except to give you a rap upside the head if you've ever considered them.
There's actually a lot of good advice in this book, and useful information. It's well-organized and easy to read. Investigating treatment options before diving in, thinking about what makes sense for your child and not other children you've heard about, and always keeping things in perspective are suggestions most parents need to hear -- as are instructions for collaborating with educators instead of just making demands.
If you're at that point in your journey as a special-needs parent where you very much want someone to take your hand and tell you what to do, in the safest and most reasonable terms, with the greatest research and the lowest risk, this book may very well be the gently authoritarian guide you need. If you've gone so far as to have opinions of your own, though, there's a good chance the author will leave you feeling defensive even when you agree with her.
