Parenting Your Child with Autism: Practical Solutions, Strategies, and Advice for Helping Your Family

Amid a bewildering range of treatments that promise to alleviate or even cure autism, even the leading researchers can’t predict what will work for your child. As a parent, you are in a unique position to become the practical expert on your child’s needs and strengths. Parenting Your Child with Autism will equip you with family-tested and science-based approaches for meeting the challenges ahead.

You’ll learn how to:

• Get a diagnosis and navigate the health care and educational systems
• Make sense of your child’s treatment options
• Tap into expert opinions and your own observations to find a treatment program that works
• Become your child’s best advocate and build a better family life

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

• Scientific Evidence Is Important but Falls Short
• Parents Are At the Center
• Parenting a Child with Autism as a Journey
• What Went into This Book
• A Quick Guide to This Book

1 What Is Autism?

• Three Differences Define Autism
• A Brief History of How Autism Has Been Defined and Explained
• Definition vs. Diagnosis
• How Should We Describe Autism?
• The Impact of Autism on a Life: Learning from Others’ Experience
• Moving Forward with Understanding and Appreciation

2 What Causes Autism?

• How the Evidence Stacks Up
• Looking into the Future

3 Can Autism Be Cured?

• What Do We Mean by “Cure”?
• What’s the Evidence for Any Form of Long-Term Improvement?
• If Not a Cure, Then What Are We Aiming For?

4 Difficulty, Stress, and Our Advice for You

• An ASD Diagnosis Affects Parents
• Tackling Common Challenges
• Striving for a Balanced Mind-Set

5 Getting a Diagnosis

• Does Your Child Behave Differently?
• The Diagnostic Appointment
• The Diagnosis

6 Understanding Your Child’s Specifics and Building Your Treatment Team

• What? More Tests?
• How to Develop a Profile of Your Child's Strengths and Weaknesses
• Building the Right Treatment Team
• Making Every Appointment Effective

7 Choosing Interventions and Treatments

• Learn about Providers and What They Do
• Navigate the Terrain of Treatments and Interventions
• Make Your Choice

8 Medications

• Approved Drugs for Autism
• How Drugs Are Studied
• Why Consider Medications for Autism
• Types of Medications for Autism Symptoms
• Side Effects and Multiple Medications>
• Navigating Medication Decisions

9 Other Biomedical, Physical, and Sensory Interventions

• Sensory Interventions
• Dietary Interventions
• Biomedical Therapies

10 Education

• Learning
• Educational Approaches
• Working with Your Educational Team
• Becoming Your Child’s Best Advocate

11 Social, Communication, and Language Interventions

• Speech and Language Therapy
• Visually Based Communication Interventions
• Interventions That Target Social Interaction
• Arts-Based Interventions

12 Real-Life Knowledge, Skills, and Families

• Knowledge about the World
• Develop Your Own Practical Learning Agenda
• Practical Teaching
• Daily Living Skills>
• Everyday Challenges

Afterword

Recommended Reading

References

About the Authors

"Finally, a book for parents of children newly diagnosed with autism that’s accurate and practical without being intimidating or alarmist."
- Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation

"This wonderful book will bring comfort and practical help to many families as they search for creative ways to relieve their children’s distress, develop new skills, and find areas of joy."
- Joseph Gold, MD, chief medical officer at McLean Hospital