Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew: Updated and Expanded Edition

I'm new to the Autism world. My nephew is almost 2 years old, has PDD and SPD. He went from being a kid that tantrummed every 2 minutes, non verbal, to a kid who has ABA 3 times a day, and a sensory gym 3 times a week for OT, PT and ST. He's starting to say a couple of words. His tantrums have gone down considerably. We can almost make it 45 minutes through Mass without him screaming bloody murder. What does this have to do with the book??? From my experience, this book as brought me so much understanding OF WHAT MY NEPHEW IS GOING THROUGH ON A DAILY BASIS. I've read so much about why he might or might not have autism, I've read that he has a sensory disorder and we have all the sensory toys to help him...but it was not until this book, which I finished in one evening, that I ever FELT how he must feel on a daily basis. I see a lot a of reviews for people who think this book can't help if your child is non verbal. I can't comment on something I don't know. But from where I'm coming from, this book has opened my eyes to the ways I should and shouldn't speak, act and shouldn't act, around a litle boy that is seeing the world in an entirely different way frome me. No, I don't have to do those things, but I'm his aunt, and I want to bond with him however I can. And that's the main point of the book. We can change. We are adults. We think neurotypically. Someone with a different perception cannot just conform to the way I think. Even if he tries hard, or wants to...he can't. So it's up to ME to change. I can't wait to share this with the rest of the family. My heartbroken mother who thinks his dreams are shattered, my stressed out sister trying to hold together her last slice of sanity, my aunt who is not sure autism is not just an excuse for bad behavior. I think this book speaks in a very plain, understanding way from a woman who worked VERY HARD not to FIX her son to be what she wanted him to be, but to enter his world and engage him, so that he could then seek her world out as well. And she's sharing how she did that. This book is not a how to book with the secret ingredient to make a child verbal or filled with emotion. Her point is that even if your child never speaks, or never hugs you back, he or she deserves your unconditional love, and she gives you the support and pep talk you need to be that person your child needs.

Our son was verbal and therefor was not diagnosed until he was nine. As soon as we were told about the unique logic mapping our son used (we NEVER say our son is disabled...He's just wired differently and therefor thinks and acts differently) I began doing research to learn everything I could. I didn't find get my hands on this book until about two years after the diagnosis and a lot of frustration. I stumbled upon this book during a road trip and was done before we stopped again for gas (yes, it's that short.) I have bought roughly 30 copies in the 6 years since then. They were given (never just lent) to friends and family so they could have enlightenment regarding their own children or regarding my son. I remarried two years ago without meeting ANY of his family before hand. The kids and I met the WHOLE family three months (and 500 miles) later at a family reunion! Knowing this was going to happen we gave each nuclear family on my husband's side a copy of this book BEFORE we came to visit. I can't express how amazing it was to have a stress-inducing (meet the in-laws) trip without a single meltdown. And I got to meet and visit instead of repeatedly explaining my son's quirks and triggers (or worse, have to leave because he is so stressed that he starts his injury-inducing ticks.) We are no longer frustrated or submerged in the black hole of daily, if not hourly, meltdowns. The companion book (written for teachers) has been a gift for each teacher our son has had in the past six years. These two books can easily be described as a pocket-sized miracle. If you have a student or loved one that's on the spectrum you are doing yourself and your quirky companion a huge disservice if you don't spend the $10 for this book. It is a wonderful window to see the simple, logical manner in which our quirky loved thinks. That tiny glimmer of light explodes exponentially when you realize that these ten points will address most, if not every, situation you and your loved one could face. That's the disco ball at the end of the black hole.

Worth a read

..... living with someone on the autistic spectrum. I have read a number of books that purport to help understand the breadth of challenges facing the families of those living with an autistic child. All were helpful, some more than others, with the only deficiencies being perhaps a too narrow focus on the authors personal experience. An understandable approach, given that the majority of those challenged by Autism present different behaviour and symptoms reflecting their position on the spectrum. There does seem to be however a number of consistent core truths and behaviours that are vitally important to understand and come to grips with. Ellen Notbohm manages to capture most of these and presents in a clear and concise manner a road map, if you will, explaining these key elements and offering a well thought out response that I hope you will find, as I did, enormously helpful. You cannot take the square peg representing an autistic child's needs and fit it into the round hole that is our expectations of how to parent a child. The parenting skills we learned from our families, our teachers, our therapists, may be roughly useful to help you cope with the majority of children but there are those who are tuned to a different frequency. They need extra love, extra understanding and a standard Dr. Spock approach may not fit. We need to learn to tune in to the right channel. Ten Things can help you. I highly recommend it.

Very very good book for parents of autism family.

Easy to understand and neatly organized. Valuable perspectives from actual experiences help provide very informative, encouraging yet realistic thoughts about autism in a child.

As a parent of two autistic boys life can be a challenge, every day will show you a side of your child that is as hard to accept as it is to understand. It is sometimes impossible to know what has caused a 'meltdown' and even more difficult to know what to do to calm the situation and return to as near a normality as you can. It seems, sometimes that an autistic child perceives a world that we can only visit on their terms. This book helps you to understand what those terms are and in doing so allows us in, and enables us to make informed and subtle changes that accomodate rather than agitate a complex mind. Ellen Notbohm is a mother of autistic children and deals with the issues of autism in a sensitive and somtimes humourous way and since she is first and foremost a parent, she manages to convert some of the language of the phsycologists into practical, understandable and usable information.