Author: Ellen Notbohm

Publisher: Future Horizons

Pub. in: January, 2005

ISBN: 1932565302

Pages:  

Measurements: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA01039

Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1932565300

Ellen Notbohm's Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew, an extension of her article "What Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew" speaks to children's wishes and the choices parents can make to honor them.

And so begins Ten Things, with the first wish of a child - that he or she be known by one word, and one word only - "child," and not squelched by the label "autistic child." It ends with the child's final wish - that he receive unconditional love and acceptance. The remaining eight wishes tucked in between provide insight into the tools that will honor, empower and respect their precious children and make all their wishes come true.

Ten Things zeros in on the importance of sensory issues and thoroughly explains their direct link to a child's behavior. Ellen guides parents through reformatting their own beliefs and suggests ways to identify and work with the child's sensory structure. Ten Things addresses those infamous "meltdowns," explains the four trigger clusters, and offers suggestions on how to identify their underlying causes. Ellen acknowledges that it's hard work for parents to actively seek out reasons for those meltdowns rather than chalk them up to an out of control child that could do better if he wanted to. By her own diligence, and with the help of qualified professionals, meltdowns are a rare happening in her home now.

Ten Things reminds us that our children are concrete and visual thinkers and they interpret language literally. Ellen explains why idioms don't work and how we can train ourselves to speak concretely and say what we mean to help our child understand since any communication that doesn't make sense to a child simply won't get through. Without helping him develop a functional way to communicate his needs, fears and wants, they will take any shape they want, which means they'll generally manifest in the form of behavior.

This book also provides techniques to construct a visual strategy to help a child to navigate his day, which will quite naturally and over time contribute to improved social interactions and the creation of a solid self esteem, the foundation for social functioning. And for the child's sake, Ellen implores parents to remember and believe that he's trying the best he can with his limited abilities and social understanding. Any other belief system will short circuit the route for him to become a functioning citizen in our world.

Without doubt, the word 'autism' strikes fear in the hearts of parents, and Ellen makes no bones about it. She speaks candidly about her own initial grief and despair when her son was diagnosed - those instantaneous images of her child locked inside his own head, never able to interact properly with the world and become self-sufficient.

Ten Things champions the cause of helping families discover their strengths. It validates everybody's capabilities and possibilities. It addresses early confrontations with "can't do" and redirects the focus onto what children "can do." It offers a roadmap for avoiding what Ellen calls the "swamp of unmet expectations," the place where a child's "potential goes to die if parents don't detach their personal aspirations from their child's."

Ten Things is all about parental choices:

- choosing between negative and positive thinking (he won't do versus he can't do);

- choosing to live in the dark rather than the light (frustration versus empowerment and patience);

- choosing to limit themselves and their child by trying to bend him to their will by forced compliance rather than focusing on his gradual acclimation to the mysterious nuances of daily life that create havoc in his world;

- choosing to move beyond the bitterness, grief and disappointment that they didn't "get the child they were supposed to get," and open their minds to becoming the parents they have been called to become;

- choosing a rewarding direction for their life, their child's life, their family's life.

Read Ten Things. Absorb it. Then read it again and again. Learn from it. Trust it. Find your strength. Choose well for your child. Make all his wishes come true.

(From quoting Lori)

Target readers: Parents.