Sicille-Kira,C
Autism Life Skills 10 Essential Abilities Your Child With Autism Needs to Learn, Chantal Sicile-Kira
01/06/09
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Autism is a highly variable and sometimes complex condition. Knowing how to respond to autism isn’t intuitive - it’s something we have to learn. Understanding the differences in thinking, sensing and perceiving that underly what we see on the surface is the first step. The next step is about assembling a toolkit which we can chose from to help with the very individual difficulties each person with autism experiences.
Autism Life Skills isn’t a bad toolkit in itself. It will certainly help parents, teachers and young people with autism themselves with both of the ‘steps’ to understanding and responding.
There seem a lot of ‘self help’ or ‘survival’ guides on autism around at the moment. They are nothing new of course and I still like Marc Segar’s book A survival guide for people with Asperger syndrome (you can read it on the web for a start!)
Chantal has pulled together a book which uses the voices and experiences of people with autism to guide us through 10 essential ‘life skills’ and provide ideas on why some of them are a problem for people with autism. There’s not space here to cover all 10 but things like ‘making sense of the world’ (through the senses), ‘safety’, ‘self esteem’ and ‘earning a living’ all make the list.
Embedded in each chapter are little text boxes which serve as ‘food for thought’ or ‘practical tips’. These will really suit some peoples reading style!
Winston Churchill (not a man I quote often) described Britain and America as “two nations divided by a common language” and reading Autism Life Skills I was reminded of how true this can be. At times I found the style and language of the book hard to get on with. Autism knows no international barriers though and the stories, comment and ideas in this book have relevance everywhere.
Another thing I struggled with was the number of voices in the book. It’s great to have so many contributions from folk who know autism from the sharp end but the downside is it becomes a little disjointed.
The book is priced at £11.99 but Amazon (and I’m sure other book retailers) have it cheaper. Worth buying? Yes, but remember, books built around personal experiences and advice are exactly that.
Chris Barson
Positive About Autism
(A version of this review appeared in Learning Disability Today)
Back
Autism is a highly variable and sometimes complex condition. Knowing how to respond to autism isn’t intuitive - it’s something we have to learn. Understanding the differences in thinking, sensing and perceiving that underly what we see on the surface is the first step. The next step is about assembling a toolkit which we can chose from to help with the very individual difficulties each person with autism experiences.
Autism Life Skills isn’t a bad toolkit in itself. It will certainly help parents, teachers and young people with autism themselves with both of the ‘steps’ to understanding and responding.
There seem a lot of ‘self help’ or ‘survival’ guides on autism around at the moment. They are nothing new of course and I still like Marc Segar’s book A survival guide for people with Asperger syndrome (you can read it on the web for a start!)
Chantal has pulled together a book which uses the voices and experiences of people with autism to guide us through 10 essential ‘life skills’ and provide ideas on why some of them are a problem for people with autism. There’s not space here to cover all 10 but things like ‘making sense of the world’ (through the senses), ‘safety’, ‘self esteem’ and ‘earning a living’ all make the list.
Embedded in each chapter are little text boxes which serve as ‘food for thought’ or ‘practical tips’. These will really suit some peoples reading style!
Winston Churchill (not a man I quote often) described Britain and America as “two nations divided by a common language” and reading Autism Life Skills I was reminded of how true this can be. At times I found the style and language of the book hard to get on with. Autism knows no international barriers though and the stories, comment and ideas in this book have relevance everywhere.
Another thing I struggled with was the number of voices in the book. It’s great to have so many contributions from folk who know autism from the sharp end but the downside is it becomes a little disjointed.
The book is priced at £11.99 but Amazon (and I’m sure other book retailers) have it cheaper. Worth buying? Yes, but remember, books built around personal experiences and advice are exactly that.
Chris Barson
Positive About Autism
(A version of this review appeared in Learning Disability Today)
Back