ABC of Autism provides clinicians and medical students with a succinct, evidence-based overview of the symptoms, evaluation, treatment, and management of autism in both daily practice and for ongoing patient support plans. This accessible and informative guide allows primary healthcare professionals to quickly reference the essential information required for appropriate patient care. Compact yet comprehensive, this book offers concise and focused chapters covering topics ranging from basic epidemiology and key diagnostic features to managing behavioural difficulties and co-morbidities, such as ADHD and dyspraxia. Full-colour illustrations reinforce understanding of the condition while actual case studies demonstrate contemporary practices and real-life scenarios. ABC of Autism is a valuable resource for GPs, paediatricians, speech therapists, educational psychologists, medical and nursing students, and practitioners responsible for coordinating multidisciplinary care for patients with autism.
An essential quick read for all professionals working with people with autism, this book contains 35 tips for effective and sensitive communication with individuals on the spectrum. Focusing on positive language and the importance of taking the individual's lead on their preferred terminology, these tips are easy to implement in everyday practice.
Autism is the first book on the condition that seeks to combine medical, historical and cultural approaches to an understanding of the condition. Its purpose is to present a rounded portrayal of the ways in which autism is currently represented in the world, It focuses on three broad areas: the facts of scientific research, including new ideas surrounding research into genetics and neuroscience, as well as the details of diagnosis and therapy; the history of the condition as it developed through psychiatric approaches to the rise of parent associations, neurodiversity and autism advocacy; and the fictional and media narratives through which it is increasingly expressed in the contemporary moment. Accessible and written in clear English, Autism is designed for student audiences in English, Disability Studies, Cultural Studies, History, Sociology, and Medicine and Health, as well as medical practitioners and the general reader. Autism is a condition surrounded by misunderstanding and often defined by contestation and argument. The purpose of this book is to bring clarity to the subject of autism across the full range of its manifestations.
What is autism really like? Academic literature often defines autism in a clinical, pathology-orientated way, whereas personal testimony can tell health and social care professionals how it feels. This book presents personal accounts from people whose lives have been touched by the day-to-day realities of autism: people with autism, professionals who interact with them, their parents and their siblings. The stories are mostly told ‘straight’, with brief introductory comments and a few reflections at the end of each chapter.As Autism Programme Leader at the University of Cumbria for the past 13 years, Steve Mee is uniquely placed to compile such a book. He has met, and befriended, many people with autism and their families. Through listening to their stories, he has had moments of profound challenge and insight. In this book, he shares these personal narratives and what he has learnt from them. Reading these accounts will enable professionals to develop a real understanding of what it is like to live with autism, in all its nuanced detail. This in turn can provide vital insights into the impact (both positive and negative) of professional interventions. Contents include:IntroductionSection 1: Three women getting on with their livesSection 2: Going through the education systemSection 3: From education to workSection 4: Mothers’ storiesSection 5: Sisters, churches and nursesSection 6: ConclusionReflections on these storiesResources
This innovative book addresses the question of why increasing numbers of people are being diagnosed with autism since the 1990s. Providing an engaging account of competing and widely debated explanations, it investigates how these have led to differing interpretations of the same data. Crucially, the author argues that the increased used of autism diagnosis is due to medicalization across the life course, whilst holding open the possibility that the rise may also partly accounted for by modern-day environmental exposures, again, across the life course.
Independence is something all teens seek. They hope and dream they will someday maximize all they can do on their own.This is no less true for teenagers with autism. Autism & Independence is a new clinical resource to help teens and young adults with autism become their own person. Focusing on a population often overlooked, autism expert Dr.Daniel Marston wrote this game-changing guide, filled with strategies and skill building exercises. Proven strategies for finding employment, using public transportation and living on their own Tools to improve self-confidence in friendships and professional relationships Interventions to overcome challenges in the workplace Copingskills for anger, frustration and sadness Over 20 assessments for counseling sessions and moving therapy forward
A disorder that is only just beginning to find a place in disability studies and activism, autism remains in large part a mystery, giving rise to both fear and fascination. Sonya Freeman Loftis's groundbreaking study examines literary representations of autism or autistic behavior to discover what impact they have had on cultural stereotypes, autistic culture, and the identity politics of autism. Imagining Autism looks at fictional characters (and an author or two) widely understood as autistic, ranging from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Harper Lee's Boo Radley to Mark Haddon's boy detective Christopher Boone and Steig Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. The silent figure trapped inside himself, the savant made famous by his other-worldly intellect, the brilliant detective linked to the criminal mastermind by their common neurology--these characters become protean symbols, stand-ins for the chaotic forces of inspiration, contagion, and disorder. They are also part of the imagined lives of the autistic, argues Loftis, sometimes for good, sometimes threatening to undermine self-identity and the activism of the autistic community.
Teaching Myself to See deals with Tito’s struggles to participate in a world full of visual details. As a person with autism, Tito is visually selective, processing the myriad of details seeping in through the eye rather than the whole. Tracing Tito’s experiences to learn to see in his own, “hyper-visual” way, through art, through magazines, through everyday life, Teaching Myself to See is a work of auto-anthropology, capturing in words, sentences, paragraphs, poems, a way of seeing that might seem so bewildering that doctors and psychologists told his mother he wouldn’t be able to think. This book proves otherwise. By teaching us to look through his eyes, Tito shows us the miracle and immense complexity of sight, of neuro-atypicals and neuro-typicals alike.
Educating Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Model for High-Quality Coaching offers a unique coaching model with a practical approach for special education teachers and related service providers who face the challenge of providing effective support to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). By empowering special education and speech-language pathologists to participate as coaches, they can go beyond simple accommodations to actively promote a less restrictive setting, dynamically assess skills, deliver effective instructional and behavioral programming, and effectively build a coaching network to engage students throughout the school day. Provided in this text are vignettes that illustrate the reality of special education. Additionally, approaches for addressing the real-word needs of students with ASD are provided, along with evidence-based support that describes the positive results of the strategies described. This text also introduces coaching methods that will guide teachers and instructional staff to create and maintain a "solutions-focused" coaching community. The first section of the book presents a multi-tiered model for providing coaching at varying levels of support intensity, along with the numerous important considerations involved in implementing effective coaching supports. The second section presents an outline of effective practices in utilizing coaching strategies to support teachers in planning for the instruction of meaningful skills to students with ASD utilizing a team-based, collaborative coaching model. The third section provides numerous practical, evidence-based strategies to be used by coaches and teachers in teaching meaningful skills to students with ASD. The final chapter addresses critical issues involved in building the capacity of districts to evaluate, oversee and support the effective coaching of teachers in providing evidence-based practices to students with ASD. Educating Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder serves as a clinical guide and delivers a practical discussion of high-quality coaching as an emerging best practice for supporting special educators (teachers and paraprofessionals) as well as school-based service providers (speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists). It is a valuable primary text for special education teachers in training, a resource for professional development personnel, and a tool for researchers and graduate students in education and teaching programs. Key features include: Chapter objectives Real-life vignettes Reproducible forms Summary questions
One element at the heart of effective service provision is an understanding of the service user's needs. This book unravels some of the common misunderstandings between people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and providers of support services, and offers practical advice on how to ensure that the needs of people with ASD are catered for effectively.Denise Edwards writes directly from her own experiences of finding appropriate support for her adopted son, John Paul, who has Asperger's syndrome, but also draws on the experiences of a broad range of service users. She emphasises the importance of understanding and conveying the nature of ASD so that support services can meet a person's needs effectively. She discusses common areas in which difficulties arise, including communication, social situations and the organisation of information, examines the implications of support in wider society - education, employment, the legal system - and makes practical suggestions for changes that can improve access to benefits and services for people with ASD.Informative and down-to-earth, this book is essential reading for the providers of services for people with ASD for service users themselves as well as formal or informal carers, friends, family, related professionals and policy makers.
Uniquely Human
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Look Me in the Eye
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