Joy's Autism Blog

I’m sure most people have read or at least heard of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books but if you haven’t: they’re a collection of stories from many different authors that are inspirational and touching. The audience this book is intended for is parents of children with autism spectrum disorders but I think anyone could really learn a lot from this book. You can really get an inside look at how our families deal with trials, how much joy our kids bring us, and feelings that are stirred up in our day to day circumstances.

This book has 101 different stories by various authors who have a child or children with an autism spectrum disorder. The stories go from first finding our their child had autism all the way up to their child’s transition into adulthood. It goes from funny little stories to heart breaking struggles. There are stories about school and family life and even a few tips and techniques for you to read about.

As is the case with all of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books  you should have your tissues handy although the funny stories were really some of my favorites!

This is a great book, it’s definitely one I would recommend picking up. Here’s the good news: I’m going to give away a copy! All you have to do is leave me a comment and I will put you in the drawing. I will draw one winner on June 1st.

This book, A Full Life with Autism is written by Chantal Sicile-Kira and her son Jeremy Sicile-Kira. The very first book I read about autism is written by Chantal Sicile-Kira. Back when I knew pretty much nothing about autism I headed into Barnes and Noble in search of a book about autism. I thumbed through every book they had about autism and I ended up with her book simply titled Autism Spectrum Disorders. It really helped me in the beginning to figure out exactly what I was dealing with so when I was contacted to read Chantal’s new book called A Full Life with Autism I jumped at the chance.

How many times have we all heard that there is too little focus on adults with autism and the transition from a child with autism to an adult with autism and what we as parents are supposed to do to help our adult children make a smooth (well as smooth as possible) transition into adulthood? You hear it so much because it’s true. I didn’t know where to start as far as preparing Adrian for adulthood. This book is amazing in outlining resources and strategies for preparing your child with autism to become a happy and fulfilled adult.

This book has not only advice from Chantal who’s son Jeremy has autism and mostly communicates through his ipad but it also has invaluable advice from Jeremy himself. I love that Jeremy has the ability to communicate his advice and ideas about autism and how to help people with autism become everything they dream to become.

I’m thankful that I read this now when he’s at 8 years old so I can guide him in the right direction young because I know I personally baby Adrian at times and I cannot do that if I expect him to become a functioning independent adult someday. Reading and re-reading this book are going to help me help him now and in the future.

As you can tell I highly recommend this book and I’m thrilled to be able to give away two copies of this book to two readers. I’m keeping it very simple, leave me a comment on this post and you are in the drawing to win. Continental United States only please. I would like to keep this giveaway open through the rest of April so hopefully anyone who wants in the drawing will get a chance to comment and get their name in there. In exchange for this review I was given a copy of the book for myself but all the opinions above are my own.

You also have a couple more days to enter my other giveaway so click here for details.

If you haven’t heard of the book The Golden Hat yet this video is a good place to start:

When I was first contacted to review this book I wasn’t sure if I wanted to and I’ll tell you why. I’m not big on celebrity. Celebrities do not impress me and I wasn’t interested in having a book of celebrity pictures. I went ahead with it because I watched the video above and it made me realize that I shouldn’t write someone off just because they are a celebrity. While I wouldn’t care if it’s Kate Winslet or Joe Shmoe doing this book, it’s really a great book.

This book starts by telling you about the special relationship that Kate developed with Margret Ericsdottir and her son who has nonverbal autism Keli Thorsteinsson. Margret and Keli are from the documentary A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism. You get to peak inside all the email commentary shared between Margret and Kate and it’s really touching as you see Margret celebrate her son’s accomplishments with Kate and you get to see the whole idea behind The Golden Hat Foundation and this book come to fruition.

Next is my very favorite part of the book and it’s a portion entitled “First Words” and it shares portraits of individuals with nonverbal autism in the famous hat of course and some of the first words they communicated. These were the first words they were able to communicate after years of silence through various communication methods. I can’t even describe how touching these pages were to me. I tear up just thinking about them.

After that you see portraits of the celebrities sporting the hat and sharing a quote for their page of the book.

And in the last pages of the book you’ll find poetry written by Keli. He uses a letter board to communicate and is a true poet.

You’ll want to read this book. It’s a good one.

I am giving away two copies to two lucky winners in the continental United States. To enter into my drawing please leave a comment on this post and make sure you leave behind a way to contact you either via email or facebook. This giveaway will run until April 14 and on April 15 I will randomly draw 2 winners. In exchange for writing this review I have received a free copy of the book but the above opinions are all my own.

On Tuesday August 2nd I’m going to host a giveaway for a wonderful children’s book called Flightless Goose, I am part of a virtual book tour in which the author of the book will be available to my readers to answer any questions you may have. I just wanted to provide a heads up so you can go like Flightless Goose on Facebook which will count as an entry to win a copy for yourself! More details coming on August 2nd!

This giveaway is closed for entries to win the book but feel free to still leave your tips

I’ve been asked to read through this book and let everyone know what I thought about it. First a little side note, the girls are not left behind on this one! There is also a “girl version” of this book, appropriately titled 1001 Tips for the Parents of Autistic Girls. You can learn more about the book here at their website and read other bloggers thoughts on this book too! And here is a photo of the cover of the book so you can spot it easier if you want to check it out:

I’ve been reading pieces of this book, it’s very long of course because 1001 tips does take up a lot of pages, 480 pages to be exact! I think this is a book that you would keep around for reference over time, not just a sit down and read the whole thing book. I looked at the contents to see what would appeal the most to me. So if the book was a sandwich, the meat in the middle appealed to me the most because this book covers all the way from pre-autism-diagnosis all the way through to adulthood. So we are past the pre-diagnosis and not yet to the adulthood so I started looking through the midsections and pretty much every section there was of some interest to me. I was so happy to see the adult autism community get addressed though, I feel they are far too often neglected and left unsupported and I know I’m going to be there someday. So overall, I really think there is a healthy bite of information in this book for anyone dealing with autism.

My favorite thing about the book is that it has a ton of information from several different sources compiled into one book. The book contains many sources to help you delve deeper into any one topic that may interest you. It’s not just written from one person’s point of view, it’s a compilation of lots of people’s ideas in the autism community. Sometimes the point of views seem to contradict each other and that took a little getting used to. I did like that it was arranged as fairly short tips so when you’re busy, like I am, you can just read a few tips and move on. Some tips will appeal to you, some won’t. With so many contributing opinions, I think this is a pick up what you can learn from and leave the rest behind. There is a lot to pick up here though. I was happy to see sections on things that can be complicated to understand like IDEA & there was lots of therapies addressed that I never even heard of! Like “vision therapy” (which I actually think Adrian could really benefit from!) who knew?

One of the sections that I payed close attention to was the section on dealing with the schools. I have an IEP meeting coming up so I was interested in reading tips on that. I did come out with some good tips on IEP and I noticed a recurring theme on many of the tips. It was tips encouraging parents to be positive and make learning fun for the child. I think it can be easy to focus too much on the “work to be done” and let the fact that they’re still kids gets thrown by the wayside. I enjoyed that and I found it to be an encouragement. It also encourages parents to be the team leader and be tough. I’m kind of meek and mild. I’m a bit shy, get embarrassed easily so these meetings can be intimidating to me. I think I’ll just re-read some of these tips before the meeting and I think it will encourage me to get my confidence up and just go for it-Like tip #86 If making friends doesn’t work, be prepared to fight! So far though we have a fabulous team and they all want the best for Adrian so it’s been fantastic, but if we must fight, then we must.

The very best thing in the whole book in my humble opinion is a little section about how to explain autism to your family and friends. It gives examples like “verbal doesn’t mean smarter ex: ever have laryngitis” and helps describe sensory issues with “ever had a shirt tag bother you? well imagine that with cactus needles poking out of it” Easy to imagine for someone who might have a hard time figuring out your little guy and why he does what he does. Tips #521 through #527 have more examples to make it easier for loved ones to “get it” a little better.

Overall I would recommend this book to families dealing with autism. It’s just a book that I feel would keep on giving. There is so much information that you could pull it out when you’re facing circumstances and get yourself some tips on how to deal with it. From early symptoms, to education, therapy, nutrition, relationships (marriage, siblings, friends) , daily life, parenting, personal care, military families, homeschooling, safety, holidays, future, finances, and more…you’ll find help for almost any circumstance.

So I’m sure you’d like a copy of this book for yourself wouldn’t you? All I’m asking is for you to make a comment below with the best “tip” you’ve ever gotten about autism. Someone will be chosen at random to receive a copy of the book! The giveaway will be open through sometime on Monday.

This book was and continues to be a great resource for me. It has tons of good information and resources of where to find more information. The description on the front of the book says “The Complete Guide to Understanding Autism, Aspergers Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and Other ASD’s” It received the Outstanding Book of the Year award from the Autism Society of America. It covers everything from Causes, diagnosing, coping, treatments, educational needs, community interaction, adult living, and much more. One of my favorite things in this book are some of the charts in the back. It shows tons of different medications and special diets that families have tried and the results on how the medication helped their child. I highly recommend this book to any educators or parents that are dealing with autism in their lives.