Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies, and Hope That Can Transform a Child's Life - Hardcover

Koegel, Lynn Kern; Lazebnik, Claire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670032948 ISBN 13: 9780670032945

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2004

Synopsis

Two respected authorities on the treatment of autism contribute to this groundbreaking, inspirational book that features practical advice on how to manage and treat the disease that affects one in 150 children. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Lynn Kern Koegel is one of the worldÂ’s foremost experts on the treatment of autism. She and her husband, Robert L. Koegel, Ph.D., founded the renowned Autism Research Center at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Californian, Santa Barbara. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Claire LaZebnik is a published novelist and magazine writer.  She lives with her husband and four children in Pacific Palisades, California.

From Publishers Weekly

Clinician Koegel (cofounder of the Autism Research Center at the University of California Santa Barbara) and novelist LaZebnik (Same As It Ever Was), mother of an autistic boy, team up "to show you how intelligent, well-planned early interventions... can improve the symptoms of autism enormously." That doesn't mean that they offer easy remedies to what's practically an epidemic (they estimate 1 in 150 births result in an autistic child). The technique of "applied behavior analysis" (a behavior modification program stressing close observation and positive reinforcement by parents and doctors), say the authors, can reduce the withdrawal and other characteristic behaviors of autism while improving a child's prognosis for intellectual and social development. They organize chapters by behaviors typical of autism, e.g., "Ending the Long Silence"; "Tears, Meltdowns, Aggression, and Self-Injury"; and "Self Stimulation." The coauthors take turns in each chapter, first discussing symptoms clinically and then anecdotally from a parent's perspective. Koegel believes disruptiveness and self-involvement are often attempts to communicate, and suggests ways to tailor replacements for such conduct. LaZebnik adds soothing, often wry first-person advice. As the mother of a boy who "was entirely nonverbal at age two and a half," LaZebnik's good news leavens Koegel's sometimes daunting program of behavior analysis, positive modeling and incentives. Encouraging but realistic, the authors' humane, proactive tactics toward improving autistic behavior will interest parents willing to take a labor-intensive, teaching approach to their child's disorder.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0670032948
• ISBN 13: 9780670032945
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336