Asperger Syndrome, First Edition

This books is more of a research overview than anthing else, with a variety of papers written from several perspectives. A particular disappointment to me was that, rather than getting essays from the many talented Aspies out there, they got some from their parents to close the book out. It is probably more useful to psychiatrists, Occupational Therapists, and the specialist working on a Ph.D. in Special Ed than any parent or newly diagnosed Aspie. If you are a parent, and interested in getting into your child's mind, I would suggest reading Liane Holliday Wilson (Aspergers) or Temple Grandin (HFA) or Steven Shore (Aspergers). Szatmari's book is also decent, but is more of a professional's attempts to get into our heads, rather than truly being a first hand account. There is also a great deal of information, both academic and first-hand accounts, by people on the internet. Viewer beware, however. There is a great amount of nonsense about chelation treatments and other such things that have never been scientifically proven to improve your child's behavior or social skills. For the latter, I suggest a book called "Incorporating Social Skills in the Classroom", and also a book on NLD whose name I can't currently remember but that you can find in my recently reviewed list.

The collection of papers in this volume are really top class. All the academic authors (there are a few snippets from parents) are very well published. The erudition shows in the breadth and depth of coverage. In such a rapidly hanginf field this is as near as you can come to frozen slice of current thinking. Unlike many anthologies, wherein authors expound on a particular niche obsession, the bulk of articles here offer broad overviews of work. The diagnosis and symptomatology debate is well presented in a series of papers opening the book. Leaving aside the technical academic ares, most paretns will find teh sections on langauge and interventions informative but downheartening. What come across is that adoelscents AS are so heterogenous as a group that even assessing theor conversational deficits is several dozen research projects in itself. The one area of the book that I personally was a little weak on recommendations related to interventions. The emphasis here was on methodological concerns and in fact often meta-methodological concerns. It is eqaully clear that many researchers regard the possibility of remission of AS has highly improbable - to be polite about it. Be that as it may, I reflected to myself a number of times during the course of reading the book (and being part of team looking into interventions), that if a fraction of the effort expended was applied to intervention research would be make better strides? It's a moot point, but if we lose hope we better close down science.

Actually, that's four stars with a strong qualifier -- this is a fairly dense book for most laypeople. A collection of medical journal articles with some parent essays tacked on at the end, and intended for parents of A.S. kids rather than A.S. adults (although it does have some material for them, too), this unfortunately is more useful for the professionals for whom the articles were originally written than for parents. There's a lot of important information buried in here, but for most people it'll be difficult to access.

This book brings together some of the most current thinking from some of the foremost researchers, scientists and professionals in the field. I found it very informative and valuable. However, it is highly technical and very difficult to read unless you also have a Ph.D or are an experienced reader in this area. Not for beginners, best for educators and professionals.

This book is much more than I expected. Most books on Aspergers Syndrome just touch on the basics. This book really digs deeply into all areas of AS. It is well organized and has indepth and thorough material on the subject. It is divided into 5 sections which make it easy to browse to get immediate answers. The book reminds me of a graduate level college textbook but still is easy to understand, especially for parents who already have a basic understanding of Aspergers. I received my copy yesterday and after thumbing through the book couldn't put it down until I finished it. I especially enjoyed the parent essays that were included in the book.I would recommend this book to educators, clinicians, parents and anyone interested in learning more about Aspergers. I will be giving a copy of this book to the clinician at my child's school.