Finding Your Child's Way on the Autism Spectrum: Discovering Unique Strengths, Mastering Behavior Challenges

I'm the author of this book. I'm writing this review to explain a few things about the unique focus of Finding Your Child's Way on the Autism Spectrum, and how I think it can be helpful for those who have an autism spectrum child in their lives. Although I am trained as a psychiatrist, I'm not writing as an autism treatment professional. I'm writing as a parent. This book is not a treatment manual, nor is it an exhaustive resource on the various available treatments for autism. There are many excellent books like this already available, and I hope that you'll consult them to learn more about what your options are. Finding Your Child's Way on the Autism Spectrum also is not a memoir of my work with my son, although I do discuss how I helped him. Eric was very severely autistic at age 3. He was mute, didn't understand what we were saying, and had self-injurious stims. The doctors told us that he was retarded. But at age 17 he was his high school valedictorian, and today he's an honor student at a very competitive university. I do assume that you'll want to know how he got from where he began to where he is today, but this is not my main purpose in telling his story. I believe that every parent, grandparent, family member, and Sunday school teacher can make a difference in the life of a spectrum child by better understanding what I call his "way." I hope that as you read about Eric's life (told with his generous permission), you'll begin to see how you can discover your own child's unique way. Although I started on my autism journey with professional qualifications that you probably don't have, I believe that any parent or nonprofessional helper can learn to do the same things that I did. I didn't write Finding Your Child's Way on the Autism Spectrum to show you the one and only guaranteed method for producing improvement in your child. In fact, I don't believe that there is any one and only guaranteed method! But I do believe that, whatever your child's challenges may be, you can help him achieve the potential that God has placed in him. My book isn't intended to replace any treatment or educational approach you may choose. Rather, it's intended to supplement it. As your child comes home every day from school or early intervention, what can you do to help him grow in areas of function that are important to you, especially at home? This is the kind of question that it answers. Finding Your Child's Way on the Autism Spectrum offers real hope to parents and loved ones of spectrum kids. God created each and every child, including our spectrum kids, for a purpose. Our job as parents is to work with our children's differences instead of against them, to help them develop into the unique adults that God had in mind when He created them. If we see our role in this way, instead of focusing on "remediating deficits," the focus of our hope will also begin to change. Instead of hoping that our child will become as much like a typical kid as possible,

Dr. Laura Hendrickson, a biblical counselor and former psychiatrist, has composed an excellent resource for assisting parents to learn how to best raise their child given any challenges he or she might have on the autism spectrum. Hendrickson, herself the mother to a now adult son with autism, writes with a genuineness that cannot be lightly dismissed. Every mother's (and father's) heart will be torn right alongside Hendrickson's as she tells of getting that first diagnosis when Eric was three years old. As a physician and an attentive mom, Hendrickson knew something was wrong when she would take Eric and their family dog to the beach on daily jaunts and it was her son who would be sitting alone, contentedly, far away from the water's edge (and noise) while their dog fearlessly ran the beach. Recounting those earlier memories, Hendrickson explains how she now understands that Eric couldn't handle the loud crashing of the waves, and he would cry alarmingly or alternately sit and stare vacantly. Interestingly, it was the childhood film Dumbo that put a vision of what Eric could achieve in his mom's heart. She recalls saying to the Lord soon after the diagnosis, "Lord, I believe that You can do anything. Please make Eric soar." In line with the story itself, Eric "tripped" up a lot in the growing up years, but eventually he did soar. Hendrickson can help you help your child soar as well. Threaded throughout this text, Hendrickson weaves Eric's story and her own, thus personalizing every challenge they overcame and making it "real" to other parents who are struggling to maintain a hopeful attitude in the home, despite the circumstances. Parents will appreciate her firm conviction that God doesn't make mistakes and that, despite what the media might suggest, every child is born with a purpose no matter how "disabled" or "dysfunctional" they might appear to outsiders. Readers will become educated on the various testing involved in diagnosing autism and Asperger's syndrome, what types of treatments are available, a comprehensive glossary of terms, how to deal with the emotional trials (of the child and the parent), and how to appeal to the child's heart and educate his or her mind. Especially helpful is the chapter titled "Stims, Rituals, and Obsessions," in which Hendrickson discusses the whys and wherefores of children and teens with autism. Eric's stim (self-stimulation) was to pick at his face until it left scars. Somehow, for autistic kids, such stims make them feel better and these habits help to relieve anxiety, frustration and boredom. Though difficult to break, Hendrickson explains how mothers and fathers can help their child to stop. And she reminds parents that non-autistic people have habits, too, such as drumming fingers on a tabletop or twirling one's hair around a finger. Kids with autism simply take these behaviors further than "typical" children. From infancy to adulthood, FINDING YOUR CHILD'S WAY ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM will be sou