Courtesy of author Chantal Sicile-Kira, just learned about this new autism dad book: Following Ezra: What One Father Learned About Gumby, Otters, Autism, and Love from His Extraordinary Son, by Tom Fields-Meyer. Writes Sicile-Kira: "It's a wonderful memoir, full of warmth, humor about raising a child with autism."
Since I just learned about this luscious-sounding read Sunday, I've not read it yet, but will add it to my list. What a great title, eh? That will suck in most any autism parent who's open to the concept that autism is not a dirty word. Secondly, I'm sure every autism parent-teacher-auxiliary-service-provider reading here can relate to the dinosaur images. Am I right? Priceless….
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Pssst!: Books are not dead! More news coming to "The Journey with Grace," here, on a literary resurrection happening soon in Nashville!
Also: For a spell, I'm guest posting over at my friend, "Spectrum Mom's" blog, Autism Reads, which reviews books for younger ones with autism spectrum disorder. My guest posts–originally published here, on "The Journey with Grace"–are reviews of autism-related books, written for adults. You can read them at Autism Reads on Mondays. Click on over! This week's post featured John Elder Robison's Look Me in the Eye.
So, have you read any books on autism lately? Tell me.
Excited about Parnassus Books coming to Nashville. I wrote a little about it for my buddy Roy’s new literary magazine, 2nd & Church, which will debut at the Southern Festival of Books. Oh, and the autism book looks good, too. Can’t wait until you review it.
Welcome reception tonight, opening Nov. 1. Yay! Can’t wait to blog about it!
I agree with the articles hihtiigghlng the lack of funding to isolate a gene or set of genes that could cause ASD. But, in some articles, they speak about the spectrum and how the diagnostic criteria needs to be expanded. While I am upset in the upcoming DSM-V that they are eliminating the sub-disorders within ASD, I do not agree that the criteria needs to be expanded. It’s expanded enough.Diagnostic criteria is insufficient in it’s description when attempting to diagnose children under three. Many behaviors described in ASD’s are consistent with the varying development of toddlers. The only tell-tale developmental gap, barring extreme developmental gaps, is a speech delay. Developmental delay alone is based on the norm of children in a certain age group.However, when a child has a speech delay, they are often though to have global delays that may or may not actually exist. The unfortunate truth is that many children with communication delays (both receptive and expressive), are unable to demonstrate their abilities accurately. Hence, they get slapped with an ASD diagnosis.This is the same phenomenon that existed in the 90 s and early 2000 s with the ADHD diagnosis. Where do we draw the line between quirky and overly active to disorder?