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What are
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Book Review - A Father’s Memoir about raising a
Gifted Child Autism -
While reading, A Different Kind
of Boy: A Father’s Memoir About Raising a Gifted Child with Autism,
I found myself stopping early on to recall how my two children were as
babies and toddlers before the diagnosis of autism arrived. The author,
Daniel Mont, shares his frustrations along with observations as
the primary caregiver to Alex, his first born son. While his wife
Nannette was working outside the home the first few years, Daniel was
spending hours reading books to Alex. By Bonnie Sayers |
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Glad Monster, Sad Monster - Book Review -
"If your happy and you know it clap your hands, if your happy
and you know it, than your face will really show it..." This
book entitled, Glad Monster Sad Monster is a great way to teach a
child the above lyrics and use the pictures inside this interactive
hardcover book. I picked it
out because Nicholas has social skills deficits due to being on the
Autism Spectrum, and I wanted to help him learn to express his feelings.
This has turned into one of his favorite non-animal books. Although the
pictures are cartoon like animals, he prefers the life-like pictures of
animals. Some of his quotes from looking through this book are:
Next
is a really funny guy; He’s kind of different; He looks mad; He looks
kinda scared; A scary ghost; He looks happy; Look Mom I’m a ghost; See
the small spider web on the page; He’s a pink one... By Bonnie
Sayers |
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Autism, Now What? The Primer For Parents - Book Review
- Although autism has been a part of my life for eight years I still
found Autism: Now What? The Primer For Parents helpful to me as a
parent. I related to
family issues in Chapter 6 when it mentioned, "Grandparents have
a particularly difficult time with the diagnosis. Grandparents also have
the distinct disadvantage of having lived at a time when autism was
essentially a taboo subject. In their day, such a disability was a
scourge of sorts on the family and, as such, some grandparents may be
tempted to “assign blame” on the in-law’s genes and/or the in-law’s
parenting skills." This is part of the reason why I have not been in
touch with my own family. Many just do not comprehend autism. Some of
the chapters within Autism: Now What? The Primer For Parents are only
two pages in length. There are some black & white photographs and stick
figure drawings within the pages. The authors of this
book have a 14-year old son with autism, they have been there, they
get it and want to help the newly diagnosed families through the first
steps when acquiring the diagnosis. |
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Literature's love affair with the mind / The
latest novel from Sebastian Faulks leaves behind his traditional themes of
love and war to tackle schizophrenia - or madness as it was then called - at
the end of the Victorian era. - Human Traces follows the lives of two
psychiatrist friends at a time when scientists had just started to unravel
the workings of the mind. Literary reviews have described it as Faulks'
most ambitious novel, pointing out the painstaking research that must have
gone into the 600-page book. And the conclusion - another best-seller to
match the success of his earlier novels Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. Faulks
himself had admitted it was a "big project". BBC News |
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Winning the Big Fight / In their weaker bodies
lie stronger desires. In their limitations lies their greatest strength. L
Subramani profiles the success stories of some 'disabled' people who broke
their shackles by sheer determination and the power of their dreams. -
Dr Sushama Agrewal offers an awkward smile, when someone mentions her
success. “I don’t have anything more than my love for maths,” says the
visually challenged lecturer (mathematics) in her 40s. Working with the
Ramanujan Institute of Advanced Mathematics (University of Madras), Dr
Agrewal’s eyesight started declining when she was just nine. Her interest
for math and science made her choose the subjects in her higher secondary
school (at Bhusawal, Maharashtra). Needless to mention the huge challenges:
right from reading textbooks to doing lab experiments. By the Deccan Herald
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Searching for a way to help her son, she found a new career
- Dee Bonnick has spent a lot of time trying to find help for her child. So
much time, and so much time wasted, that she's determined to do what she can
to help others avoid the same experience. Bonnick's son, 14-year-old Shaquan
Lennox, is now starting to get the help he needs. He just started the 9th
grade at Platt High School, where he's a special education student. He no
longer lives at the family home in Meriden, but at Community Residences
Inc., in East Hartford. It was a difficult decision, one that Bonnick made
for the sake of her family "after a lot of soul-searching." By Jeffery Kurz |
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Who Let the Cat Out of the Bag? - Book Review
- Back when Nicholas was eight I would search
for books on social skills for him at ebay. This is how I stumbled upon
Who Let The Cat Out Of The Bag? andw as drawn to the book by the
appealing cover artwork. The book consists of thirty pages, each written
and illustrated by a student who was in the fourth grade atNewcastle
Avenue Elementary School in Reseda, California. The first page along
with the back cover profiles the students in three rows along with their
teacher, Ms. Lizette Madruga and Ms. Carlyn Taggart. The very last page
is a compilation of three photographs showing groups of the children in
aprons adorning paintbrushes putting the touches on the book, Who Let
The Cat Out Of The Bag? By Bonnie Sayers |
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Author highlights history of skullcaps - "...No Duty to Retreat”
highlights knowledge gained during his own skirmishes with Tourette’s
and Asperger’s and history of both conditions. People affected by
Asperger’s, for example, may lead normal lives and have high
intelligence levels." By Mary Louise Speer
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No Duty To Retreat:
The Stories of Tourette's Disease and Asperger's Autism The Tourette's Disease and Asperger's Autism ISBN # 159-286-9262,
trade-size paperback, 248 pages, $19.95 - Long ago, a deep
desperation was threatening to engulf my life, and ultimately end it.
A dozen psychiatrists in as many years had no idea what was wrong with
me, and the medicos were even worse. The ignorance I had to face was
unendurable. No one helped. When I spotted an article in the early
1990s about Mozart and a thing called Tourette's Syndrome (TS), which
is really Tourette's Disease, my interest was tremendous. |
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Tell-all books are a dose of poison in Harvard's Ivy
University:
The president and his institution are on the defensive, even as
Harvard's hold on the U.S. psyche endures. - "...While some
faculty have called for Summers' resignation, many believe he will
ride out the difficulties. But his cause is not helped by the new
Harvard Rules, the expose of Summers by Richard Bradley, the John F.
Kennedy Jr. biographer who then went by the name Richard Blow. The
book posits, without scientific evidence, that Summers could suffer
from Asperger's syndrome, a condition marked by a kind of social
autism. Summers did not cooperate with the book, which includes
unflattering anecdotes, and aides have said he will not comment on its
contents. Not surprisingly, Bradley's book is absent from the Harvard
section of the campus bookstore, where a giant history of the Harvard
library sits next to tomes like Harvard Observed and Harvard A to Z."
By Ellen Gamerman
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HARVARD RULES: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE WORLD'S MOST
POWERFUL UNIVERSITY by Richard Bradley. HarperCollins, $25.95, 375
pages REVIEWED BY BRENDAN CONWAY - "... The book has many flaws, not
least of which are a flatteringly biased portrait of Cornel West,
fawning passages on Mr. Summers's enemies on the faculty and a
surfeit of gossip and innuendo. For a sense of the latter, consider
that Mr. Bradley can't avoid recounting episodes in which Mr.
Summers gags on meat and requires the Heimlich maneuver to eject it
and slops pizza on his shirt in front of apparently lily-fingered
students. Without much basis, he asks whether Mr. Summers has
Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. Mr. Summers's press secretary
has justifiably called this "sensationalist gossip." |
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Rescuing a son
- A Boy Beyond Reach. Author: Cheri Florance.
Publisher: Pocket
Books. - Author Cheri Florance is a renowned brain doctor and
communication difficulties expert. Her third child, Whitney, is a
deaf mute, insensitive to pain and indifferent to other people.
Whitney’s paediatrician diagnosed him as having the severest form of
autism. But Florance saw a glimmer of brilliance in Whitney and
insisted that if she could only communicate with him, the boy would
start to learn. For the next decade, Florance struggled with her many
roles: mother of a handicapped child, rational scientist, mother of
two healthy children, unhappy wife, outcast scientist and overstressed
single mother – in her battle to rescue her son, her career, marriage
and reputation fell to pieces.
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Dark Eye -
Dark Eye : A Novel By WILLIAM BERNHARDT. Book from
Ballantine Books. "...It is into this tense cauldron that
Bernhardt introduces another intriguing character in Darcy, the
twenty-something autistic son of the local police chief. Unlike the
autistic characters seen in many cinematic portrayals (such as Dustin
Hoffman's character in Rain Man), Darcy is a much more fully
established person. His autism separates him from the rest of humanity
and precludes some levels of normal interaction, even as his
incredible recall of details and his ability to decipher codes allows
him insights that most people miss. Unintentionally, Darcy becomes a
sort of autistic Sherlock Holmes, using his talents to assist the
police in their efforts to understand – and capture – "Edgar."
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Native talent for mischief - MARGOT LIVESEY MAY VERY WELL BE
Scotland’s best-kept literary secret. The Perth-born author of four
perfectly crafted, mischievously mysterious novels, is about to
publish her fifth - and, fingers crossed, this will surely be the one
that brings her the fame and best-sellerdom she deserves.
Banishing Verona, an elegantly written, sparkling novel, is a
pleasurable, delicious read that leaves you bereft when you reach the
final page. Already published in the States - Livesey lives in Boston,
where she teaches creative writing at Emerson College - it has been
praised for its original take on life, deft use of perspective and
lovely prose. One reviewer wrote of "an off-beat romance that takes
its tantalising time"; another spoke of "an extended romantic tease
done with art and charm ... as plot twist after plot twist conspires
to thwart love". By Jackie McGlone
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Best-selling author tells students bullying is 'not
just joking around -
For a
14-year-old, Judge Memorial Catholic High freshman Malcolm Colbert is
pretty self-aware. He worries that he is a bully - so much so that
when Jodee Blanco, a national expert on bullying, came to speak at his
school on Monday morning, he sought her out afterward for a one-on-one
session. "I feel like I'm a little overprotective of my little
brother," who's 12 and autistic, Malcolm said Monday night, at the
conclusion of Blanco's evening talk to more than 100 people. "[Blanco]
told me I was being overprotective because I loved him. But a better
way might be to get the principal and parents to talk to kids about
autism, to make autism get noticed." Blanco's journey to the
present day is akin to a fairy tale. The ugly duckling at her middle
and high schools, she was bullied mercilessly by all the popular kids.
They shunned her, told her to go to another school because everyone
hated her, swore at her, tackled her and forced
snow into her lungs as she
gasped for air, and threw glue into her hair. She went on to become
one of the top entertainment publicists in the country, regularly
rubbing elbows with the likes of Mel Gibson and Jim Carrey. By Mike
Cronin
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A Dog's Best Friend
/ Inspirational guide 'written' by Koontz's pooch penned to help Canine
Companions - The latest Koontz to become a published author likes to chew
squeaky toys and tends to drool when she eats peanut butter. Her
writing — though edited by mega-author Dean Koontz — is a bit rough. You
might say the book's a real dog. "Playing games is fun, makes life
good," advises one passage."Bacon is good. Bacon is very good," reads
another."Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living" is an inspirational guide
credited to Trixie Koontz, the beloved and photogenic golden retriever of
Dean Koontz and his wife, Gerda, by Ben Fox
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Readers make 'Curious' selection
- Wake County readers have chosen British writer Mark Haddon's "The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" for the third edition of Wake Reads
Together, which kicks off Jan. 11. Between now and mid-February,
people can read the international best seller before a series of readings,
discussions and other events begins at various bookstores and libraries. The
program is sponsored by Wake County Public Libraries and the Friends of the
Library, by Bridgette L.
Lacy
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She talks to the animals
/ Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior By Temple
Grandin and Catherine Johnson Scribner, 356 pages, $36 - What sort of
person can be the foremost consultant to America's vast slaughterhouse
industry -- including suppliers to McDonald's and KFC -- and also an
authority invoked by the animal rights organization People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA)? The answer is Temple Grandin, the animal
sciences professor and writer who has demystified autism (Thinking in
Pictures: And Other Reports from My Life with Autism; and Emergence: Labeled
Autistic), and uses her different experience of life to study animals and
apply her knowledge to their well-being.
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A Dog's Best Friend
/ Inspirational guide 'written' by Koontz's pooch penned to help Canine
Companions - The latest Koontz to become a published author likes to chew
squeaky toys and tends to drool when she eats peanut butter. Her
writing — though edited by mega-author Dean Koontz — is a bit rough. You
might say the book's a real dog. "Playing games is fun, makes life
good," advises one passage. "Bacon is good. Bacon is very good," reads
another."Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living" is an inspirational guide
credited to Trixie Koontz, the beloved and photogenic golden retriever of
Dean Koontz and his wife, Gerda, by Ben Fox
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Author publishes book on 'decoding' mental illness - After nearly 20
years of writing and research, John LaMuth has published a book that creates
a system to decode the vagaries of vices and virtues. The 275-page
softbound study, "Communication Breakdown: Decoding the Riddle of Mental
Illness,' pinpoints a wide range of ethical and unethical practices. It
examines conflicting personalities complicated by anxiety, obsession,
suspicion, compulsion and depression by Chuck Mueller
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Comedy works well on surface - Unanswered voice messages, missed cues,
false identity, journeys, banishment and the opposing needs of two gentlemen
-- one, the heroine's brother, the other, her lover ... the course of true
love is anything but smooth in Margot Livesey's fifth novel, Banishing
Verona, by Diane Scharper
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Desperately seeking
succour - "...The
novel's best character is Zeke, who maintains his
delicate grip on reality by compulsively synchronizing
clocks, counting pavement cracks and enumerating the
branches on neighbourhood trees. He proves a true
innocent abroad during his impulsive trip to Boston,
buffeted but never sunk by the American tempest. What
keeps him above water, of course, is love: "He
understood that his longing for Verona had carried him
to a new place, still at sea but with a rock to cling
to." Sufferers of Asperger's syndrome have particular
trouble with social and communication skills, and
therefore tend to focus obsessively on one thing at a
time. While this might be a problem if the sufferer
wants to teach Kindergarten or sparkle at a cocktail
party, it also makes him uniquely suited to be a
doting lover. Livesey's triumph here is to show how
disease can be turned into strength under love's
curative hand by Stephen Amidon |
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Dog’s best friend
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"...“Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living” is an inspirational guide
credited to Trixie Koontz, the beloved and photogenic golden retriever of
Dean Koontz and his wife, Gerda. A short, lavishly illustrated work, it was
created to benefit an organization that provides canine assistance to people
with disabilities. The book chronicles the pampered and contented life of
Trixie, a retired service dog, as she pads about the palatial Koontz home
overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, by Ben Fox
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Forked tongue - "...For those who have not read any of the 36
translations - “which only leaves Rockall and Mars to go”, Haddon notes
wryly - the medical condition at the book’s core is related to autism.
Sufferers inhabit a rigorously literal world, one experienced without
emotion or guile. This is rich with explored comic potential and is probably
why the book has appealed to all ages. The pleasure comes from a genuine
puzzle, but also from a touching main character simply unable to lie in a
world full of dissembling adults," by Toby Moore
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Harvard tell-all book tells little
- "...In passing, Bradley lets slip that some colleagues think
Summers has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism sometimes called ''geek
syndrome" or ''little professor syndrome." ''It's not my supposition,"
Bradley says. ''It's something that people kept raising with me. It
reflected a profound confusion about President Summers's behavior. How could
a man attain a position of such power with such bad interpersonal skills?"
by Alex Beam
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Koontz has become a real dog of an author
- The latest Koontz to become a published author likes to chew squeaky toys
and tends to drool when she eats peanut butter.
Her writing - though edited by mega-author Dean Koontz - is a bit rough. You
might say the book's a real dog. "Playing games is fun, makes life
good," advises one passage. "Bacon is good. Bacon is very good," reads
another. "Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living" is an inspirational guide
credited to Trixie Koontz, the beloved and photogenic golden retriever of
Dean Koontz and his wife, Gerda. A short, lavishly illustrated work, it was
created to benefit an organization that provides canine assistance to people
with disabilities. The book chronicles the pampered and contented life of
Trixie, a retired service dog, as she pads about the palatial Koontz home
overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, by Ben Fox
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Lawrence briefs
- KU researchers start Asperger book
club. Kansas University researchers are forming a book club for
boys with Asperger syndrome. The club, for boys between 12 and 14, is being
led by Jane Wegner, director of the speech-language-hearing clinic at the
Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies. The eight-week group will
focus on social language and reading comprehension. Asperger syndrome is a
neurobiological disorder named for a Viennese physician, Hans Asperger, who
described behaviors in boys who had normal intelligence and
language development, but who also had autisticlike
behaviors. For more information, contact Wegner by today at 864-0645 or
jwegner@ku.edu.
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One Author's Life - Award Winning Author Seeks Public's Help - Amy
Hillgren Peterson, whose first novel "The Swedish Lie" was submitted for the
Pulitzer Prize and is an American Book Award recipient, is appealing to the
public for help. The 33 year old mother of 3 is leaving her
emotionally abusive husband of 12 years. She's found a new house to rent,
but lacks money to set up the utilities and pay other moving expenses, and
refurnish the house for herself and the children. When she isn't
working on "Rock Candy," her second novel, Hillgren Peterson runs her own
corporate writing and graphics enterprise. Business, however, has been slow,
by PR Leap
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One chapter, twice a day / Books are replacing pills in a novel approach
to treating depression, reports Christine Doyle - Just as local gyms
increasingly devise programmes for people whose GPs have "prescribed"
exercise, a new mental health scheme hopes that a "book prescription" will
similarly help thousands who suffer mild to moderate depression, anxiety or
other psychological illness by Health Telegraph - UK
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New Book Treats Dyslexia with a Smile and Innovation
- The Other Side of Dyslexia Offers Successful Alternative
Approaches to Overcoming the Pain and Confusion that Can Accompany Dyslexia.
Dyslexic Ann Farris shares her research and personal experience of
overcoming the pain and confusion of dyslexia in her new book, The Other
Side of Dyslexia. ISBN # is 0-9758894-1-9. - Farris’ innovative
approach, which she documents through words and illustrations, weaves a
fascinating story of her own personal journey to managing dyslexia. The book
presents positive outcomes and provides tools for other dyslexics to
accomplish a similar goal. Ken Follett, noted British Author and President
of the British Dyslexia Institute, has praised the book: "Ann Farris is
certainly an intellectual and knows how to present complex ideas." / Press
Release
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Readers conjecture on 'Easter Island' - "...The
first of the women to go to the island, just prior to World War I, was
Elsa, who married an anthropologist in order to provide for herself and
her sister, Alice, who had what today we might call Asperger's syndrome.
At the climax of the book, Elsa is in a cave, banging her head against the
wall. Later, during Greer's time on the island in the 1970s, Elsa is still
living in that cave," Book Review
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The Soul of a Butterfly
-
The Soul
Of A Butterfly is not a book about boxing; it is a
book about life. Muhammad Ali reflection on his life
co-written with his daughter Hana Yasmeen. Ali
deals with issues that go beyond boxing. Ali details
his own journey from the small skinny kid who started
boxing to punish the thieves that stole his bike to
one of the most recognizable men in the world today.
While it was Ali who stood down the United States
Government and invented the rope-a-dope to upset
George Foreman, it was Cassius Clay who first dreamed
of being heavyweight champ. We see the transformation
from Clay to Ali. ...There are some interesting
tidbits. One example is Ali disclosing that he was
dyslexia and this affected his learning as a child.
It was always curious to me that one of the quickest
minds in sports and man who could adopt as quickly as
any men in the ring would have trouble passing
intelligence tests. Now we know. Ali suffered from a
learning disability by Tom Donelson |
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Welcome 'Banishing Verona' for its originality
- "...Zeke, 29, is
an angelically handsome house painter who lives in London and pieces life
together slowly in small bits. He suffers from Asperger's syndrome, an
affliction akin to autism," by Jackie Pray
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Will truth set him free? -
New Book: BANISHING VERONA By Margot Livesey
Henry Holt, $24 / Zeke is a house painter in London who one day hopes to
learn how to lie. Asperger syndrome has certainly complicated his life, but
it has simplified it as well. Shadings of meaning may elude him, but there's
strength in Zeke's literalness. Particularly in the swirl his life becomes
after Verona bursts into it.
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Write-minded -
It's not easy being George. A
mailman in his mid-30s who lives with his sister, he has just been fired
from his job. George is autistic and the fictional subject of a play of the
same name written by Kate Reynolds, 16, of Delray Beach, the top winner
among three in the 2004 VSA arts Playwright Discovery Program, by
Ivette M. Yee
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"I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical.
Even God had some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin."
~ Jerry Newport