Written by a parent of an autistic child, Living to Live with High functioning Autism explores the experiences of a family with an autistic child and uses those experiences to advise both professionals and other families. The book draws on the family's personal experiences, the experiences of others, and the comments of autistics themselves.
Impression: While there were many good things about the book and I did learn a few things i didn't know, the book didn't address the concerns I had picked it up for: what to expect and how to deal with an autistic child going into puberty. Much of the "advice" was too general to be useful. And too much of the advice seemed geared to changing the systems that are supposed to help families with an autistic member than to learning how to manage our situations now. While I understand we need to educate those who work with autistics, what I was looking for was a book that could help me deal with upcoming events in my own son's life, something to help me know what to expect. I also think for professionals that much of the material in the book would be things they know - that autism is lifelong, that autistics need individual solutions, and so on. Overall, I found the book to be less useful for me than for other professionals, but probably not all that useful for the professionals either.
Unless otherwise noted, all books reviewed have been purchased by me.
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I will no longer be linking to Amazon and no longer recommending Amazon as a place to purchase books I review. Amazon has repeatedly used bully tactics to reinforce its policies, even if those tactics cause harm to authors or limit customer choices. Amazon usually apologizes for the events after the fact, but that they continue to use the same methods makes those apologies hollow. I will not purchase from or encourage others to purchase from a business that chooses to take from the pockets of authors (who as a whole earn a lot less than general public realizes) and decide what the public should and should not read.
