Announcing the "Thinking Person's Guide to Autism"

Update December 17, 2011:

Since this post comes high in a search for "The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism" I thought I'd drop the publishing information in here:

CreateSpace Thinking Person's Guide to Autism

Amazon: Thinking Person's Guide to Autism.

The Kindle edition will be available in a few days.

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Brand new and recommended.  Disclosure: I am one of the editors.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism

A Community Book and Blog Project 

The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism (TPGA) is the book and website we wish had been available when our children with autism were first diagnosed. We want to help people with autism and their families make sense of the bewildering array of available autism treatments and options, and determine which are worth their time, money, and energy.

Think of us as a little bit of Snopes for the autism community -- trusted, accurate, and friendly. Our essays will cover informed approaches to autism and autism treatments, as well as the personal experiences of people with autism and their families. Our attitude is cautionary yet loving -- we're  honest, but we're not interested in negativity.

Places to read:

• Who we are
• Our Mission Statement
• Submission Guidelines
• Resource pages (under construction)

Comments

[kwombles]

http://autismblogsdirectory.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-blog-great-idea-thinking-persons.html

I showcased the new endeavor on the Autism Blogs Directory and added it to the hodge podge section. :-) Good luck with it!

[xine]

What a great site, thanks for recommending.

[Beth]

Good site but I certainly hope there will be other contributors. Shannon seems to constantly have a huge chip on her shoulder and I won't be reading if she writes every post. She comes across as very passive aggressive and is a turn off to read.

[Liz]

Beth, thanks for the comment.

We have about 35 unique writers lined up for the blog -- some have committed, some have semi-committed.

The blog has been Shannon-heavy at the beginning because we literally thought of the whole project 10 days ago, and we didn't need to wait for her permission to edit and publish posts -- as she is one of the three editors.

Of course, we cleverly planned this project to kick off at one of the busiest times of the school year -- for us in California, school is just over, or will be next week.

One of the things we hope to accomplish is to add an element of social, racial and cultural diversity to the conversation about autism.

So keep reading -- I think you will find several posts of interest.

[Sarah]

Hi Liz,

Thanks for this.

My 13 y/o son, Mars, is three to four years behind the norms in reading comprehension. His state-of-the-art Autism school has not helped him catch up. Their Visualization and Verbalization (Linda Mood Bell) intervention doesn't help. Their SRA Reading Counts program doesn't help.

Could thinking people with Autism who have overcome such reading lags and now enjoy reading for pleasure share their stories here?

Sarah

[Liz]

Dear Sarah,

Good question!

This is an area I'm just beginning to explore in my own professional development.

I have a few starters for you:

Go check out the blog Out In Left Field on reading

http://oilf.blogspot.com/search/label/reading

and on grammar and its effect on reading comprehension

http://oilf.blogspot.com/search/label/grammar

She is a linguist and the parent of children on the spectrum.

You may wish to look at Michelle Garcia Winner's work on social thinking and academic issues

http://www.socialthinking.com/what-is-social-thinking/academic-issues

Check out this

http://www.paulakluth.com/articles/comprehension.html

As I said, it is a start.....

[Reddy]

May I suggest someone to add to your list of writers???
Cathy Knoll, her website - http://faqautism.com/
She is a music therapist(sp??) that works alot with austic people of all ages