The Way I See It: Book Review by ChristineMM

Title: The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger’s
Author: Temple Grandin PhD
Publication: Future Horizons Inc, September 2008.
Format: soft cover book
Full retail price: $14.95
ISBN: 9781932565720

My Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Summary Statement: A Well-Organized Collection of Grandin’s Articles

How this book came to me: I received a review copy of this book after requesting it from the Amazon Vine program.

This book is a collection of articles that were previously published in Autism journals. The articles have been edited, updated and neatly arranged by topic. The articles are 2-4 pages long and numerous articles make up each chapter. Due to this arrangement it is not necessary to read the book in its entirety or in order from start to finish. The reader can jump around from topic to topic if they want, and it will all still make sense. Temple Grandin PhD describes herself as a ‘high functioning Autistic person and she is presently in her 50s. While some of this is opinion and some is explaining the way life is experienced by the author, other parts are summaries and analyses of information such as medical studies. After reading this book cover to cover I can see that a lot of time, research, energy and passion went into Dr. Grandin’s writings.

The chapters having to do with medical information, diagnoses, medical treatments, and discussing what different kinds of research has shown are cited right at the end of the article with the references cited. I want to make it clear that it is apparent that the author has researched these topics thoroughly. Unlike so many other non-fiction books (or magazine articles or web based articles) on the market which comment on studies or shell out advice based on what the medical experts say this one actually does state what studies were referenced so they are believable and so the reader can go on to research more if they desire. Although many of these professional journal articles are not available to the layperson easily or for free, at least laypersons will know that the information is based on something it is not just made up or pure opinion based on someone’s imagination. Health care professionals who want to learn more would have easier access to those source materials than the layperson does.

Also included for many chapters is a list of source material for the reader to further investigate. The further reading is in various sources such as websites, books, journal articles and magazine articles. For example when discussing vision issues that some people with Autism have, she cites the medical studies published in professional journals and a list of websites available to everyone to read for free.

Chapters have these titles which sum up the broad range of topics addressed in this book: Diagnosis and Early Intervention, Teaching and Education, Sensory Issues, Understanding Nonverbal Autism, Behavior Issues, Social Functioning, Medications and Biomedical Therapy, Cognition and Brain Research and Adult Issues and Employment.

I mentioned the articles were updated for this book. Examples of that are citing journal articles dated 2007 and 2008 (this first edition of this book was published in September 2008) and including some information on the newest drugs for depression and anxiety. Sometimes the author comments on current event issues that happened very recently. I appreciated that these articles were edited and updated when reformatting them for publication in a book and they are NOT just a quick reprint of old articles. I appreciated that. I feel the book was edited well. It was not boring, it moved along providing just enough information on a wide variety of topics. When the reader is left wanting more information, which is when further research on one’s own would be worthwhile. Anyone dealing with Autism and Asperger’s has got to realize that to know more they will have to do a good amount of self-education by reading the research and other books and articles that pertain to the specific topic areas that are issues for their unique child with the Autism or Asperger’s diagnosis.

This book is not the first book on autism that parents of newly diagnosed children with Autism should probably read. However after learning the vague basics and generalized information that is so readily available, if a person wants more information more from the perspective of a successful person who actually has the Autism diagnosis, I highly recommend the writings of Dr. Temple Grandin. Her previous book “Thinking in Pictures” was eye opening to me as it was the first time I was able to read what life would be like for a person who is a visual thinker. This book was even better because it explains some things that can only be described by a person who has lived through them, for example, the sensory issues.

As the subtitle says, this is “a personal look at Autism and Asperger’s”. This is the information and research as viewed by Dr. Grandin. This book is what it says it is, it does not pretend to be something it is not. I do appreciate this book and have learned from it. If you crave a less personal view of the issues and information about Autism written by someone from a more distant perspective perhaps you would not like this book. As for me I hope that Dr. Grandin continues to write and speak at conferences to share her experiences and information ‘the way she sees it’.

One thing that I appreciated and don’t always see in writings about Autism was the positive attitude to attempt to boost parents who have children with Autism . She inspires parents to take action, to not give up, to find responsive health care providers, to not bow down to Pediatricians who are not taking the suspected diagnosis seriously in the early stages. She stresses the importance of having early intervention, to work with their children directly not ONLY rely on professional expert treatments, and to get parents to set high expectations of their children. (In this way she reminded me of Maria Montessori and in general about children’s education and standards of behavior she reminded me of Marva Collins). She tackles the difficult topics of household and behavioral rules and of etiquette. She discusses punishments (negative consequences for negative actions) even for young children with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. She discusses how her mother handled her in the 1950s and 1960s and I completely agree with Dr. Grandin’s assessment of today’s parents (all parents) and the different lowered standards for behaviors today in general which spills over and affects today’s parents of children with Asperger’s or Autism. Two common pitfalls are being too permissive due to wanting to be the child’s friend, not setting high enough standards—children rise to the standard set for them so if the parents bar is low then they’ll only rise to that and, in Dr. Grandin’s view, using the label-diagnosis as an excuse to not even try to set limits and behavior standards---which I call playing the victim role.

She also addresses behavioral issues with teens and adults, urging them not to play the victim role and to stand up and learn to play by society’s rules rather than play the Asperger’s or Autism card and refuse to comply with normal cultural norms or workplace etiquette. That section is perhaps her toughest and least flexible and may cause some readers to bristle.

Over and over Dr. Grandin reinforces that her opinions are her opinions based on her experience. She says multiple times that the Autism spectrum is wide and even the perspectives, perceptions, and experiences of people with the same exact diagnosis or who are functioning seemingly on an equal level vary so greatly. She does NOT ever claim to be living the one and only way that all people on the spectrum live. For example people who are nearsighted and are told they have a vision rating of 20/200 may all report their vision as seeming the same, things are blurry if they are a certain distance away and so forth. Anyone who knows anything about Autism understands that Autism is not at all as simple as a medical diagnosis of being nearsighted. Despite that fact, I know some people will say what Dr. Grandin says is not 100% true or applicable for their child on the Autism spectrum, however expecting such a high standard from a person writing of their own unique experience is ridiculous. Many people say if they learn one really useful thing from reading a non-fiction book or attending one seminar then it is worth it. There will be at least one thing if not many that readers will find useful, they may see a new perspective, perhaps be able to be more empathetic, or maybe they will learn something new, hear of a study they didn’t know about, realize they want to go on to read a different book sourced, or perhaps they will feel uplifted and encouraged to be an advocate for their after reading this book. If any of that happens with readers then it makes this a useful book that did its job.

The bottom line is that if you like and appreciate past writings of Dr. Grandin you will love this book. If you like her writing style and opinion sharing and have not read all these articles before then this book is a great value and convenient to have all these articles in a bound book format. If you are sick of general cold information that seems too clinical you may like the fresh perspective in this book with its personal take on source materials. If you seek more general information from a more distant source there are other books on the market for you about Autism. If you are a purist who has access to and can understand and properly evaluate statistics you may prefer to read the original medical studies and professional journal articles instead. Certainly if you are a medical doctor working with Asperger’s and Autism issues you should be reading the original professional journal articles and source medical studies. This book is primarily written for the layperson parents and teachers who live or work with people with Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.

One last thing I will mention is I have just finished reading a book about gifted children and adults who have a dual diagnosis or a misdiagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome. In case that book might be something you are interested in I’ll mention it. The title is “Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Asperger's, Depression, And Other Disorders by James Webb MD (ISBN 978-0910707671). That book was excellent.





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