The Autism bookstore feature books about living with autism, as well as other related topics. Books are listed in alphabetical order by title. Click the title to read more about each book. Are we missing your favorite book? Click here to send us your recommendations.
- 101 Tips for the Parents of Boys with Autism
- 101 Tips for the Parents of Girls with Autism
- Autism Adulthood: Strategies and Insights for a Fulfilling Life
- Autism Cookbook: 101 Gluten-Free and Allergen-Free Recipes
- The Autism Job Club: The Neurodiverse Workforce in the New Normal of Employment
- Cooking with Leo: An Allergen-Free Autism Family Cookbook
- Cutting-Edge Therapies for Autism
- Educating Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors, and Psychologists
- The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism
- Finding Lina: A Mother’s Journey from Autism to Hope
- How to Prevent Autism: Expert Advice from Medical Professionals
- It’s Not a Perfect World, but I’ll Take It: 50 Life Lessons for Teens Like Me Who Are Kind of (You Know) Autistic
- Teaching Adolescents with Autism: Practical Strategies for the Inclusive Classroom
- Temple Grandin: Voice for the Voiceless
- Victory Over Autism: Practical Steps and Wisdom toward Recovery for the Whole Family
101 Tips for the Parents of Boys with Autism
by Ken Siri
The latest research shows that more than 1 in 50 boys in the US now has autism, and the number keeps rising. Parents of these boys become full-time researchers, always looking for the latest information on doctors, education, and treatments. Following countless hours of study, Ken Siri is sharing what he has learned. In 101 Tips for the Parents of Boys with Autism you will learn about navigating puberty with your son including issues such as personal hygiene, inappropriate touching, and sex. Parents of boys with autism contend with many unique problems due to increases in size, strength, and aggression as the boy ages. How do you keep both yourself and your son safe when he is suddenly twice your size? 101 Tips for the Parents of Boys with Autism has the answer. Other topics include:
- Teaching your son about grooming, washing, and deodorant
- Choosing a school
- Getting insurance to cover treatments
- How to handle bullying
- Legal issues and Medicaid pros and cons
- Maintaining a social life for both you and your son
- Handling marital stress and divorce
- Where to go on vacation
- And many more!
From what to do when you first suspect your son might have autism to coping with the first diagnosis, following up with comprehensive evaluation, and pursuing education and treatment, 101 Tips for the Parents of Boys with Autism is the book that every parent of a boy with autism needs.
101 Tips for the Parents of Girls with Autism
by Tony Lyons
The latest research shows that as many as 1 in 88 US children now has autism, and the number keeps rising. Parents of these children become full-time researchers, always looking for the latest information on doctors, education, and treatments, and parents of girls with autism face particularly unique challenges. After countless hours of study, Tony Lyons is sharing what he has learned. In 101 Tips for the Parents of Girls with Autism you will learn how to deal with troubling issues such as periods, birth control, and the risks of sexual abuse. Both Mom and Dad will learn which menstrual pads work best and why the ones with wings just are not them. And how exactly do you get your daughter to actually start using them? 101 Tips for the Parents of Girls with Autism has the answer. Other topics include:
- How to get the most useful evaluation
- Where to find other parents of girls with autism
- Getting insurance to cover treatments
- Coping with the unique social issues that girls face
- Legal issues and Medicaid pros and cons
- Maintaining a social life for both you and your daughter
- Handling marital stress and divorce
- Where to go on vacation
- And many more.
From what to do when you first suspect your daughter might have autism, to coping with the first diagnosis, following up with comprehensive evaluation, and pursuing education and treatment, 101 Tips for the Parents of Girls with Autism is the book that every parent of a girl with autism needs.
Autism Adulthood: Strategies and Insights for a Fulfilling Life
by Susan Senator
One of the biggest fears of parents with children with autism is looming adulthood and all that it entails. In her new book Susan Senator takes the mystery out of adult life on the autism spectrum and conveys the positive message that even though autism adulthood is complicated and challenging, there are many ways to make it manageable and enjoyable. From her own son with autism, now twenty-five, she has learned “never say never.”
Autism Adulthood features thirty interviews with autistic adults, their parents, caregivers, researchers, and professionals. Each vignette reveals firsthand a family’s challenge, their circumstances, their thought processes, and their unique solutions, and plans of action. Sharing the wisdom that emerges from parents’ and self-advocates’ experiences, Senator adds her own observations and conclusions based on her long-term experience with autism. Told in Senator’s trademark warm, honest, and approachable style, Autism Adulthood paints a vivid and thought-provoking picture of many people grappling with grown-up, real-life autism. Senator’s is the only book of its kind, as real families share their stories and their creative solutions.
Autism Cookbook: 101 Gluten-Free and Allergen-Free Recipes
by Susan K. Delaine
Join the countless other families who have discovered enormous improvement in their autistic children through diet—now featuring new recipes, new photographs, new alternative ingredients, and the same beautiful design and delicious food that made the original edition so popular. Written by a mother of an autistic child with numerous food allergies, this book is a simple and easy guide to preparing family-friendly meals that can improve a child’s digestion and immunity. Recipes are all free from wheat, rice, barley, oat, egg, milk, soy, peanut, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. All recipes are gluten-free and casein-free and alternatives to refined white sugar are offered in recipes that require a sweetener.
The Autism Job Club: The Neurodiverse Workforce in the New Normal of Employment
by Susan K. Delaine
The Autism Job Club is a groundbreaking book for bringing adults with autism and other neuro-diverse conditions into the work world.
The book has its basis in the autism job club that the authors have been part of in the San Francisco Bay Area, the job-creation and job-placement efforts the club has undertaken, and similar efforts throughout the United States.
The authors review the high unemployment rates among adults with autism and other neuro-diverse conditions more than two decades after the ADA. National data on autism employment and unemployment with the individual employment searches of job club members.
Bernick and Holden also outline and explain six strategies that, taken together, will reshape employment for adults with autism:
- The art of the autism job coach.
- The autism advantage in technology employment.
- Autism employment and the internet economy.
- Autism employment and the practical/craft economy.
- Autism and extra-governmental job networks.
- Autism and public service employment.
The Autism Job Club will be a vital resource for adults with autism, their families, and advocates who are committed to neuro-diverse employment, not unemployment. But it will also speak to a far broader audience interested in how to carve out a place for themselves or others in an increasingly competitive job world.
Cooking with Leo: An Allergen-Free Autism Family Cookbook
by Erica Daniels
Cooking with Leo is a mother’s love letter to and inspired by her son. This heartfelt cookbook also tells the story of a mother desperate to heal and to connect with her severely autistic son. A story of a mother finally connecting with her hard to reach child through the most vital everyday activity--cooking.
For many years, Erica Daniels had been out to find a successful dietary intervention for her eleven-year-old son Leo, who suffers from significant food allergies, gastrointestinal disease and autism. Through trial and error in her own kitchen, she finally hit her gastronomic stride of preparing nourishing meals for her entire family without gluten, dairy, soy, nuts, additives, or GMOS--with Leo by her side.
Part cookbook and part love story, Cooking with Leo takes you into the real life messy kitchen of a family affected by autism and food allergies. You will laugh and cry along with Erica and Leo as they cook, create, laugh, dance, act silly, and, most importantly bond.
Cooking with Leo is a family-inspired collection of over 60 allergen-free and autism-diet friendly recipes to be prepared and shared by your whole family together. Make meaningful connections with your child and nurture their passion for cooking with nutritious recipes such as:
- Teff-Tough Honey Waffles
- Football Sunday Turkey Chili
- Grandma’s Healing Chicken Soup
- Leo’s Italian Artichokes
- Nanny’s Rhubarb Sauce
- YouTube Organic Gummy Candies, and more!!
Learn not only to cook nutritiously for your whole family, but also to connect with your children, find their gifts and develop their strengths, impart life skills, and tie the family together with healthy food and happy guts.
Cutting-Edge Therapies for Autism
by Ken Siri and Tony Lyons
The parents of children with autism know that learning about treatments is a full-time job. For parents with limited time, ability, or resources, Ken Siri and Tony Lyons have compiled the latest in autism research and treatment. Exploring the possible causes of autism and presenting novel therapies, medications, and interventions, Cutting-Edge Therapies for Autism contains contributions from more than ninety experts on a wide variety of research findings, therapies, models, and multifaceted evaluation and treatment centers.
Revised and fully updated to include the latest developments, this fourth edition includes up-to-date information on mitochondrial, antifungal, and physical therapy treatments; about speech, art, music, and sound therapies; and how diets, HANDLE, indigenous healing, and other exciting new treatments can be used to help your child. It also addresses developing technologies, like the iPad, which provides hundreds of apps that help kids with autism communicate and organize their day, and helps parents keep track of therapy schedules. Filled with case studies and research, Cutting-Edge Therapies for Autism is a detailed and informative guide for anyone affected by autism.
Educating Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors, and Psychologists
by Erin E. Barton and Beth Harn
According to the CDC, one in fifty American children is diagnosed as having an autism spectrum disorder. This means more school-aged children are entering classrooms with ASDs and teachers are being called upon to help facilitate their learning. Educating Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders is aimed at providing strategies for teachers, school counselors, and psychologists to help address the needs of children on the spectrum, as well as their families. Erin E. Barton and Beth Harn draw on current research and practices to discuss the possible causes of autism and to help prepare educators not only for teaching children in the classroom but also for providing families with the tools necessary to continue the educational process at home. Included are topics such as:
- Improving communication and socialization
- Developing instructive lessons
- Assessing students’ progress
- Including families in educational goals
- Finding students’ special interests and using those to help facilitate learning
- Managing challenging behavior
- And more
Including forms, charts, and a range of classroom activities, this is the only resource you will need to gain the insight and tools for making a difference in the educational lives of young children with autism.
The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism
by James Lyons-Weiler, PhD
The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism delves deep into the full body of past and current research to reveal how genetic predispositions and environmental factors can combine to produce the conditions autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
To make this groundbreaking volume, Dr. James Lyons-Weiler combed through the past fifty years of published research on autism, exploring subjects such as genetic variation, mechanisms of neurotoxicity of metals and pesticides, and the central and combined roles of each in causing autism.
Lyons-Weiler provides a major overview of all aspects of the condition of autism, reviews changes in diagnoses and treatments, and explains how genetic information can be used to tailor effective treatments, and sometimes reversals, of the symptoms. He also presents practical forward-looking suggestions on how to design future studies to facilitate the discovery of biomarkers for autism risk and how to classify the full range of autism spectrum disorders.
Autism is considered one of the most mystifying conditions of our day, and alarmed scientists, doctors, politicians, and parents are desperately trying to understand why the condition is escalating. According to the CDC, rates in the United States have risen from an estimated one in two thousand children in 1980, to one in sixty-eight in 2012, and a new National Health Interview Survey shows a rate of one in forty-five. By the time you read this book, that number may have changed yet again.
While most autism researchers focus on either environmental or genetic causes of autism, Lyons-Weiler’s opus demonstrates that to fully understand the condition and to finally put its rate on the decrease, it is essential to pay attention to the science showing how the two classes of factors interact.
Finding Lina: A Mother’s Journey from Autism to Hope
by Helena Hjalmarsson
Lina was a normal and precocious toddler—charming, chatty, and joyful—but at the age of three came the first seizure, followed, to her parents’ horror, by the loss of her ability to play, use language, and control her impulses. Over the next few years Lina seemed further and further away. She communicated her acute discomfort by biting, screaming, hitting, laughing maniacally, and throwing violent tantrums. As a single mother, with the help of her ex-husband, Helena tirelessly pursued every possible avenue to find a treatment.
Soon, Helena and Lina’s new normal would be special schools, restrictive diets, sensory stimulation, relationship-based therapy, gastroenterology, homeopathy, sign language, and allergy treatment. A mother and daughter’s life together had irrevocably changed. But with the extraordinary help, patience, and understanding of friends and family, and Lina’s own strength and perseverance, that new life has become one of inspiration, healing, and transcendent love.
Unflinchingly raw and courageous, Finding Lina “is not only a mother’s painfully honest account of coming to terms with her daughter’s autism, but an offering of insight and new possibility to parents facing similar situations. This is a story that resonates beyond the specific illness, with a universality both heart-rending and inspiring” (New York Times bestselling author Dick Russell).
How to Prevent Autism: Expert Advice from Medical Professionals
by Dara Berger
The statistics are alarming and become more so every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 68 children have been identified with an autism spectrum disorder, making it one of the fastest growing developmental disorders in the United States. Further, the CDC estimates that parents with a child on the autism spectrum can have nearly a 20 percent chance of having a second child with autism.
In How to Prevent Autism, Dara Berger shares her personal journey with autism. She describes everything that went wrong with her son that led to an autism diagnosis and everything she did differently to prevent her daughter from suffering the same fate. She interviews eight well-known ASD experts--including doctors, nutritionists, nurses, and scientists--about the factors that have led to the growing epidemic of autism. Based on the best practices for preventing autism in children, each professional offers perspectives grounded in their own research and their patients’ improvements. The book covers every detail--from the importance of mothers’ cleaning out their bodies preconception, through common genetic mutations that may put children at risk, to the crucial role of nutrition in prevention.
All parents agree that every choice counts when it comes to the health of their children. As Dara Berger makes clear in this personal, informative, and authoritative book, the stakes could not be higher when it comes to autism.
It’s Not a Perfect World, but I’ll Take It: 50 Life Lessons for Teens Like Me Who Are Kind of (You Know) Autistic
by Jennifer Rose
Jennifer Rose is autistic. She’s also a college student who loves reading, writes fan fiction, and wants to be on TV someday. She sees the world a little differently than most people around her. She’s had trouble coping with school, has struggled with bullies and mean girls, but she has also achieved much in the face of adversity. And through it all, with the help of her parents, Jennifer’s learned a few lessons:
- #5: Use your dreams to make a difference.
- #8: You won’t be perfect at everything, not even the things you do best.
- #18: Learn to take jokes, even your dad’s.
- #26: Down times will be bouncing up soon . . .
- #27: . . . meanwhile, enjoy what you have.
- #47: Talk about your feelings, even when it’s hard.
It’s Not a Perfect World, but I’ll Take It is an uplifting guide to life. It explains how you can be different and still connect with others, how to deal with tough realities, and how to celebrate happy times. Told with irresistible honesty and humor, Jennifer’s fifty bite-sized stories will have teens and adults nodding in recognition and gaining new insights about themselves.
Teaching Adolescents with Autism: Practical Strategies for the Inclusive Classroom
by Walter Kaweski
Award-winning educator Walter Kaweski offers secondary teachers practical strategies and heartfelt insights based on his extensive experience as an autism specialist, inclusion coordinator, and father of a son with Asperger syndrome. Students with special needs often require extra support as they adjust to middle and high school and the changes that accompany adolescence. Without support, this time can be overwhelming. Teaching Adolescents with Autism offers hundreds of valuable ideas to help teachers:
- Understand the causes and manifestations of autism
- Solve adolescent behavior challenges
- Support students with diverse needs
- Implement academic and behavioral interventions
- Help students adjust to social situations
- Understand special education policy
Each chapter offers numerous personal stories that illustrate and reinforce strategies in a tangible way. Important concepts are augmented with bulleted lists, tables, figures, photographs, and cartoons drawn by a student with autism. This unique book takes the mystery out of teaching adolescents with autism and inspires teachers to appreciate the individuality of each student.
Temple Grandin: Voice for the Voiceless
by Annette Wood
Since Temple Grandin’s life story was told in the 15 x Emmy-nominated film Temple Grandin, and since her heartwarming speech at the award ceremony, she has become one of the world’s most well-known members of its community.
In this fascinating biography, Annette Wood delves deep into Grandin’s life from childhood to adulthood. Wood tells of the trials and tribulations of the icon: What difficulties Grandin struggled with and how she’s become a hero for the autistic community. She also tells what Temple has done since the movie came out, where she is today, what kind of difference she’s made, and what her future holds.
For the 22 million people worldwide afflicted by autism and the countless friends and family members who support them, this brilliant portrait presents an up-close look at the disorder and renewed hope for what the future could bring for those on all levels of the spectrum.
Victory Over Autism: Practical Steps and Wisdom toward Recovery for the Whole Family
by Mary Romaniec
Children are recovering from autism, and yet the general public is largely unaware that this is even possible, let alone happening at astounding rates. While traditional medicine continues to be stymied on the causes and potential remedies, other physicians and proactive parents have partnered to become a progressive force for change.
In Victory over Autism, Mary Romaniec takes the reader through the personal stages parents will experience when their child is first diagnosed with autism, and shows how to become part of the next generation of proactive parents who are making a difference in the well-being of their children and families. Romaniec explores the stages of grief associated with the diagnosis, followed by an examination of the winning attributes parents should—and will—possess or adopt as they strive toward the goal of better health and full recovery for their child.
Victory over Autism includes personal accounts of overcoming the autism odds, looking out for all family members, and addressing marriage issues, and explores ways of getting the parent into the mind-set that a victory over autism is a realizable goal.
