Teaching Children With Autism to Mind Read . A Practical Guide for Teachers and Parents

Customer Reviews

Can use illustrations beyond given exercises

2007-07-23
This book has good simple illustrations that can be used for purposes above and beyond the 'situations'/emotions they represent. Parents and therapists can first ask the beginner child, 'What's happening' 'How did you know' 'What is he/she thinking' 'What could he/say?' 'What might happen next?' 'What is the problem?' 'Name 1, 2, 3 solutions' 'Where are they' 'What is he/she looking at?' 'Why is he/she sad/happy/mad/etc.?'

Essentially, the guide could be used for more than just identifying appropriate emotions and perspective taking. The situations are common and appropriate for young children/preschoolers, egs. afraid of dogs, the dark, injury, spiders; happy to get cake, toys, see a clown; sad if toy breaks, parent leaves; mad if playmate pushes, ruins toy, takes away possession.

It would have been nice if the guide had a clear normal/typical achievement age range for each level in the three categories of mental state teaching (emotion, belief, pretend play) ie, by what age a normal child would achieve each level of levels 1-5 in the three areas.

4 stars because my child is a preschooler, if older I would have wanted more sophisticated situations. Maybe the guide book could be developed for teaching children of different ages/experiences.

Autism

2007-01-06
I would recommend this book to individuals who wish more information regarding children with autistic spectrum disorder. There are many issues discussed within the book and ideas to assist children in progressing successfully. I believe this book is geared more toward educators who really want to know, or toward parents and caregivers who want to help teachers learn more effective ways of dealing with autistic idiosyncrosies. Our 8 year old son's teacher have loved the information and found it helpful to meet the needs of many children in their classes, not just those of our son.

Great Book

2001-08-12
I have applied the principles of "A.B.A." for approximately 10 years. I have worked with numerous families and children who have been afflicted with Autism. I also try to stay up to date on the newest techniques and reading materials. I found this book facsinating and have begun to apply many of these techniques with the children I am currently working with. I work with preschool and school aged children. When these principles are applied correctly I have seen amazing results. I have found this book extremely helpful and only wish I could have found it sooner.

Great part of a program for young children with autism

2000-07-30
This book contains a great program for teaching young children with autism how to interpret facial expressions and other social cues. It is aimed at young children.

If you have a teenager with autism, you may need more help, since the typical teen's social environment is much more complex than that of a younger child. This of course begs the question of why anyone would wait until their child was a teenager to start addressing his/her autism. One should instead start as early as possible, preferably well before 3 years of age, and definitely before 5 years of age. The longer you wait, the more difficult it gets, and the less promising the prognosis.

Is this book the only resource you will need to address your child's autism? Most definitely not! You should read "Let Me Hear Your Voice" by Catherine Maurice, and you should find a parent support group near you (check www.feat.org for a list by region). ABA treatment is a must, and some children also benefit from changes in diet, megavitamin therapy, and other treatments. ABA (especially), diet, and vitamins helped several children in my community go from a diagnosis of autism to testing in the normal range. But they all started very aggressive treatment early: before the age of 4.

So, read this book, but also gather information in the area of ABA, diet, and vitamins. Find other parents who are aggressively addressing their child's autism--you will need the mutual support. Above all, hit your child's autism with everything you can as early as you possibly can! There is not yet a guaranteed cure, but you can give your child a fighting chance of attaining a normal level of functioning.

Good for mild autistic young kid 2000-07-11
I am father of a mild autistic 4 years old kid. My son drops away a lot of autistic features now after diagnosis at 2 yrs old. He is OK for a lot of things. Now verbal at nearly same age, behaviour OK without any hyper or strange things, however, social and temper are the areas need to be improved. With the recommendation of his doctor, I bought this book here. The aim of the book is to teach the kid to know what is proper feeling with diffeerent environment or situations. The book gives me hints how to tell him what are expressions, how to react with strange things or environments,.. etc...

In particular that we live in Hong Kong, some illustrations and drawings are not appropriate to our urban city. ( e.g. what is your feeling when you see a snake in the grass ? ((( sorry we cannot see any snake in HK )) ) It is still OK with most of the situations given.

It is good for young mild autistic, I have shared my book with other families with same "problem" I am also a vice chaiman of an association of autistic kids parents in Hong Kong.

I am very appreciated that the publisher will send you another "book" of worksheets that you do not need to write on the orginal book. You can use that worksheets to teach your kid or class. the publisher gives you right to photocopy the worksheets as long as you entitled the original book! These worksheets sent to me or any buyer free of charge via airmail ( all free of charge when you request, and I got it after three weeks when I requested via email.. given by the book.

Worth a try but not cheap though. All autism books are expensive!

Perhaps Not as Good as the Title Appears 2000-02-03
The difficulties experienced by children with autism and related conditions in inferring the thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions of others are well documented in numerous studies. It now seems that these deficits underlie many of the social and communication problems that are characteristic of autism. Teaching Children with Autism to Mind-Read explores the relationship of "theory of mind" deficits to other areas of children's functioning and describes existing experimental work that has attempted to enhance the skills associated with understanding others' minds.

Drawing on their own intervention programme, and providing detailed information about the teaching materials and strategies they use, the authors provide practical guidelines for helping children with autism spectrum conditions to improve their understanding of beliefs, emotions and pretence. The authors tackle specific problematic issues including:
* how to interpret facial expressions
* how to recognise feelings of anger, sadness, fear and happiness
* how feelings are affected by what happens and what is expected to happen
* how to see things from another person's perspective
* how to understand another person's knowledge and beliefs
This easy-to-follow graded teaching guide is of particular relevance to special needs teachers, educational and clinical psychologists, speech and language therapists, and carers of children with autism spectrum conditions.