Coming Home To Autism

What does an autism diagnosis mean for everyday family life? Explore different rooms in the home to better understand how children with autism experience daily activities, and what you can do to support their development. · Head to the bathroom for guidance on toilet training and introducing a calming bath time ritual. · Discover how to create a safe haven for your child in the bedroom chapter, with tips to try before bedtime to help ease anxiety. · Learn how to transform any corner of your home into a special place for sensory play, fun and learning · Settle down in the parents' corner for top advice on remaining cool, calm and collected in the face of obstacles. Co-written by a mum and a speech-language therapist, and with many more rooms to visit, this book breaks down the information that you need to know to support children with autism at home.

Thank you for taking this journey with us. We hope this book brings a new awareness of the opportunity we have to help those with autism learn to communicate and realize their ambitions. People with autism have the potential to achieve great things, but only when given the appropriate support and education. This is why the Golden Hat Foundation was formed. All author proceeds from this book go directly to the Golden Hat Foundation. With your help, we can change the world for people with autism. For more information about the Golden Hat Foundation and ways you can help, please visit our website: www.goldenhatfoundation.org “I simply couldn’t conceive of how devastating it would be not to be able to hear my children’s voices. Not to be able to communicate with them, to hear them learn, grow, and express themselves verbally. How fortunate, how blessed I am. This overwhelmed me. I can talk to my children, I can respond to their needs and comfort them when they tell me they are unwell. I can tell them stories and hear them tell theirs.” Kate Winslet Imagine what it would be like not to be able to communicate with those we love. For many individuals living with nonverbal autism and their families, this is their everyday reality. The Golden Hat is an intimate response to this reality created by Kate Winslet, Margret Ericsdottir, and her son Keli, who has nonverbal autism. Kate and Margret’s stories, their personal email correspondence, and Keli’s poetry give us a profound insight into the world of those living with autism. Kate has shared this story with some of the world’s most famous people, posing the question: “What is important to you to express?” Their responses are a collection of intimate self-portraits and unique quotes. Among them are: Christina Aguilera Zac Efron Julianne Moore Maria Sharapova Kobe Bryant James Franco Rosie O’Donnell Ben Stiller Michael Caine Ricky Gervais Michael Phelps Meryl Streep Kim Cattrall Tom Hanks John C. Reilly Justin Timberlake George Clooney Elton John Tim Robbins Naomi Watts Leonardo DiCaprio Jude Law Kristin Scott Thomas Oprah Winfrey Put together by Kate, Margret, and the dedicated team who work daily on the Golden Hat Foundation, this project has been a labor of love. All the author proceeds from this groundbreaking book will benefit the Golden Hat Foundation, founded by Kate Winslet and Margret Ericsdottir to build innovative living campuses for people with autism and raise public awareness of their intellectual capabilities.

A collection of personal stories, knowledgeable explanations, and supportive advice written by a fourteen-year-old autistic boy to help provide readers with the confidence and tools necessary to befriend autistic kids.

This positive, straightforward book offers kids with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) their own comprehensive resource for both understanding their condition and finding tools to cope with the challenges they face every day. Some children with ASDs are gifted; others struggle academically. Some are more introverted, while others try to be social. Some get "stuck" on things, have limited interests, or experience repeated motor movements like flapping or pacing ("stims"). The Survival Guide for Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders covers all of these areas, with an emphasis on helping children gain new self-understanding and self-acceptance. Meant to be read with a parent, the book addresses questions ("What’s an ASD?" "Why me?") and provides strategies for communicating, making and keeping friends, and succeeding in school. Body and brain basics highlight symptom management, exercise, diet, hygiene, relaxation, sleep, and toileting. Emphasis is placed on helping kids handle intense emotions and behaviors and get support from family and their team of helpers when needed. The book includes stories from real kids, fact boxes, helpful checklists, resources, and a glossary. Sections for parents offer more detailed information.

This book is designed to address the health and safety needs of students aged five and up with autism spectrum disorders.

In 1991, Mark Osteen and his wife, Leslie, were struggling to understand why their son, Cameron, was so different from other kids. At age one, Cam had little interest in toys and was surprisingly fixated on books. He didn’t make baby sounds; he ignored other children. As he grew older, he failed to grasp language, remaining unresponsive even when his parents called his name. When Cam started having screaming anxiety attacks, Mark and Leslie began to grasp that Cam was developmentally delayed. But when Leslie raised the possibility of an autism diagnosis, Mark balked. Autism is so rare, he thought. Might as well worry about being struck by lightning. Since that time, awareness of autism has grown monumentally. Autism has received extensive coverage in the news media, and it has become a popular subject for film, television, and literature, but the disorder is frequently portrayed and perceived as a set of eccentricities that can be corrected with proper treatment. In reality, autism permanently wrecks many children’s chances for typical lives. Plenty of recent bestsellers have described the hardships of autism, but those memoirs usually focus on the recovery of people who overcome some or all of the challenges of the disorder. And while that plot is uplifting, it’s rare in real life, as few autistic children fully recover. The territory of severe autism—of the child who is debilitated by the condition, who will never be cured—has been largely neglected. One of Us: A Family’s Life with Autism tells that story. In this book, Mark Osteen chronicles the experience of raising Cam, whose autism causes him aggression, insomnia, compulsions, and physical sickness. In a powerful, deeply personal narrative, Osteen recounts the struggles he and his wife endured in diagnosing, treating, and understanding Cam’s disability, following the family through the years of medical difficulties and emotional wrangling. One of Us thrusts the reader into the life of a child who exists in his own world and describes the immense hardships faced by those who love and care for him. Leslie and Mark's marriage is sorely tested by their son's condition, and the book follows their progress from denial to acceptance while they fight to save their own relationship. By embracing the little victories of their life with Cam and by learning to love him as he is, Mark takes the reader down a road just as gratifying, and perhaps more moving, than one to recovery. One of Us is not a book about a child who overcomes autism. Instead, it’s the story of a different but equally rare sort of victory—the triumph of love over tremendous adversity.

As a boy, Raun Kaufman was diagnosed by multiple experts as severely autistic, with an IQ below 30, and destined to spend his life in an institution. Years later, Raun graduated with a degree in Biomedical Ethics from Brown University and has become a passionate and articulate autism expert and educator with no trace of his former condition. So what happened? Thanks to The Son-Rise Program, a revolutionary method created by his parents, Raun experienced a full recovery from autism. (His story was recounted in the best-selling book Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues and in the award-winning NBC television movie Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love.) In Autism Breakthrough, Raun presents the ground-breaking principles behind the program that helped him and thousands of other families with special children. Autism, he explains, is frequently misunderstood as a behavioral disorder when, in fact, it is a social relational disorder. Raun explains what it feels like to be autistic and shows how and why The Son-Rise Program works. A step-by-step guide with clear, practical strategies that readers can apply immediately—in some cases, parents see changes in their children in as little as one day—Autism Breakthrough makes it possible for these special children to defy their original often-very-limited prognoses. Parents and educators learn how to enable their children to create meaningful, caring relationships, vastly expand their communications, and to participate successfully in the world. An important work of hope, science, and progress, Autism Breakthrough presents the powerful ideas and practical applications that have already changed the lives of families all over the world.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Sweeping in scope but with intimate personal stories, this is a deeply moving book about the history, science, and human drama of autism.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker “Remarkable . . . A riveting tale about how a seemingly rare childhood disorder became a salient fixture in our cultural landscape.”—The Wall Street Journal (Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Year) The inspiration for the PBS documentary, In a Different Key In 1938, Donald Triplett of Forest, Mississippi, became the first child diagnosed with autism. Beginning with his family’s odyssey, In a Different Key tells the extraordinary story of this often misunderstood condition, from the civil rights battles waged by the families of those who have it to the fierce debates among scientists over how to define and treat it. Unfolding over decades, In a Different Key is a beautifully rendered history of people determined to secure a place in the world for those with autism—by liberating children from dank institutions, campaigning for their right to go to school, challenging expert opinion on what it means to have autism, and persuading society to accept those who are different. This is also a story of fierce controversies—from the question of whether there is truly an autism “epidemic,” and whether vaccines played a part in it; to scandals involving “facilitated communication,” one of many unsuccessful treatments; to stark disagreements about whether scientists should pursue a cure for autism; to compelling evidence that Hans Asperger, discoverer of the syndrome named after him, participated in the Nazi program that consigned disabled children to death. By turns intimate and panoramic, In a Different Key takes us on a journey from an era when families were shamed and children were condemned to institutions to one in which a cadre of people with autism push not simply for inclusion, but for a new understanding of autism: as difference rather than disability.

Receiving a diagnosis of autism is a major crisis for parents and families, who often feel as if their world has come to an end. In this insightful narrative, a courageous and inspiring mother explains why a diagnosis of autism doesn't have to shatter a family's dreams of happiness. Senator offers the hard-won, in-the-trenches wisdom of someone who's been there and is still there today—and she demonstrates how families can find courage, contentment, and connection in the shadow of autism. In Making Peace with Autism, Susan Senator describes her own journey raising a child with a severe autism spectrum disorder, along with two other typically developing boys. Without offering a miracle treatment or cure, Senator offers valuable strategies for coping successfully with the daily struggles of life with an autistic child. Along the way she models the combination of stamina and courage, openness, and humor that has helped her family to survive—and even to thrive. Topics include: the agony of diagnosis, grieving and acceptance, finding the right school program, helping siblings with their struggles and concerns, having fun together, and keeping the marriage strong.

Explores ten important characteristics that provide a window into the hearts and minds of children with autism.