I am an educator who works with autistic students. I thought that this book would provide me with a framework for understanding my students and their needs more thoroughly. I also wanted to understand more about how my autistic students communicate their desires, frustrations, and other needs to me. I want to try and understand the signs that I may be misunderstanding or overlooking.
This book does a great job of breaking down myths and stereotypes versus the realities that an autistic person experiences. However, I think exploring how these myths or stereotypes came to be prevalent in our society, or why they persist, is also worth discussing. The authors make one mention to the film Rain Man, and I think it would be beneficial for the audience to have a framework to understand how and why stereotypes persist about autistic individuals (beyond the basic understanding that people need to inform themselves instead of making assumptions). Mentioning how autistic individuals are presented in popular culture, such as films, TV shows, and print media could be one way of exploring myths and stereotypes.
Throughout the entire novel, the authors restate repetitively that autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder (it seems as if this is mentioned every 4-5 pages). The authors also repeatedly reference the 'developmental stages' of an autistic person (in reference to the idea that we cannot rush an autistic persons' development because it will occur in stages when the individual is ready to receive the learning/development). This obviously makes sense, but the stages are never outlined in any type of order or framework for the audience to refer to. Is this because some individuals will reach certain stages before others, and there is no order? Is this an oversight by the authors, who expect the audience to be familiar with autistic stages of development? Are the behaviours of an autistic person just so varied that there is no framework in place or stages to refer to, because each individual's behaviour is so wildly different? The theory of developmental stages makes sense, but without a framework to reference, it became difficult for me to follow some of the ideas in the book without falling back to the blanket statement of "don't rush a person's development/everyone is an individual." How do you know when a person will just never be able to acquire a skill and it is time to move onto a different set of skills?
I appreciate the authors' discussion of how we, as neurotypicals, force autistic individuals into socially acceptable behaviour for our own comfort or benefit. It was really eye opening to consider how my actions as a teacher (forcing eye contact, handshakes, morning greetings) can impact an autistic student, even though I may have good intentions (teaching socially acceptable behaviour, manners, etc.). If the 'good morning' is done to create a routine for the autistic student and the student doesn't actually want to greet me or doesn't find value in the exchange, is it helpful to enforce this behaviour? Another example from the book would be a parent or caregiver forcing a child to say "I love you" to someone, arguing that the child may say it when they are ready but if it is forced it becomes a meaningless action done for the sake of neurotypicals. These ideas really took shape for me through the explicit exploration of multiple examples.
Another key idea is that autism is not an intellectual disorder but rather a difference in how the brain is wired, and that the autistic brain is one of 'manual' functioning (not automatic, like a neurotypical brain). An autistic person takes in information through their eyes (for example, they may not take in information from looking me in my eyes, but rather at my mouth to see the words that I am speaking). This means that if space is reorganized without an autistic person witnessing the changes, it can be very disorienting for that individual.
Overall, I think this book left me with a few key takeaways that I can definitely benefit from in relationship to understanding my students better. There are probably more thorough books about autism that I could benefit from reading.