Help Your Child Cope With Autism
Ellen Notbohm's Book Has All The Answers
Find out the main characteristics of autism and support your child with the help of this clear, easy-to-read and informative guide.
Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew by Ellen Notbohm (Future Horizons, 2005) gets inside the mind of the youngster with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and explains the obsessive behaviour, social withdrawal and language problems so you as the the layperson can better understand and support him or her.
Ellen Notbohm is a columnist for Autism Asperger’s Digest and the parent of a child with autism.
The book covers ten aspects of the autistic experience. Below is a brief outline of some of these, and a few of Notbohm’s useful pointers to dealing with them.
‘Autistic’ versus ‘Autism’
There is a subtle, but important difference between saying someone ‘has autism’ and ‘is autistic’. Just as being overweight or tall is but one facet of a person’s whole being, so it is with autism. Calling a child autistic skews how they are perceived.
The author cleverly takes up the voice of someone with ASD, pointing out: ‘I am first and foremost a child…defining me by one characteristic runs the danger of setting up an expectation that may be too low.’ This reminds the reader of the damaging potential of language to pigeonhole those who are least able to defend themselves.
Autism and Social Play
One of the saddest features of autism is the inability to play socially and form friendships. What seems like indifference in the playground is actually an inability to initiate play with other children and read facial expressions.
Encouraging Social Interaction in ASD
Ten Things… provides specific suggestions for encouraging social interaction, such as being flexible if your child absolutely hates an activity you have set up. Allow him to give up after a few sessions of Lego club (for example) and move on to something else.
Sensory Perceptions
The five senses are heightened to a sometimes painful degree in ASD. This is something that the neurotypical takes for granted, and is often hard to grasp for outsiders to the condition. The author compares the pounding surf at the beach to a pounding headache and says that at the most extreme level, one child with ASD was able to hear other people’s heartbeats.
Language Problems and Autism
Idioms and other non-literal turns of phrase (such as puns) are a foreign language to those with autism. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ summons up images of pets falling from the sky. ‘I had to bite my tongue’ leads to questions about why you needed to hurt yourself.
The book provides alternative ways to express idioms and so forth. Avoid saying ‘I’m at the end of my rope’; explain ‘I’m about to get angry’ instead.
Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew is the perfect handbook for those living or working with a child who has autism. Its clear explanations demystify this condition about which so little was known for so long. It is inspiring and full of optimism – surely the one thing that every child with autism wants you to have.
