The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
Author: | Language: English | ISBN: B00CHSJQHG | Format: PDF, EPUB
The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum
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The Autistic Brain is the first book by Temple Grandin that will be neither a memoir nor a book on animals. As always, Temple's ability to cut through the jungle of information and make the science clear is evident with each listen; her skills as a scientist and her original thinking offer some significant new insights into the understanding of autism.
Temple Grandin teaches listeners the science of the autistic brain, and with it the history and sociology of autism. By being autistic--by being able to look from the inside out and from the outside in--the author's insights are not just unique, they're groundbreaking. According to Temple, our understanding of autism has been perhaps fundamentally wrong for the past 70 years.
Direct download links available for The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 13 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: April 30, 2013
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CHSJQHG
Very well written text on autism and brain science. The collaboration between Grandin, probably the world's best known individual with high functioning autism, and Panek, a well regarded science writer, was a smart move for this book. While I have not read a previous work by Grandin, as a parent with a child diagnosed with moderate level autism I have frequently read about her and have seen enough interviews of her that I could hear her voice as I made my way through this text. Out of necessity, I have read a high number of books and research papers associated with autism, and the vast insight that Grandin shares from her own experience is valuable, as is what she shares about brain science and the opportunities she has had throughout the years to participate in ground breaking research that included scans of her own brain.
These two topics are interwoven throughout the book, and I agree with other reviewers here that this book probably has a wider audience than what the authors may have originally surmised. However, because I have read so much with regard to autism, potential readers of this book should be aware that the criticisms from autistic readers that Grandin mentions in this book about her past assertions with regard to how "thinking in pictures" is a common trait across autistic individuals, might cease but be redirected toward the fact that Grandin heavily concentrates on high functioning autism, not the entire spectrum. The DSM-5 may no longer include different degrees of autism, but even Grandin explains her reservations about DSM diagnoses. Potential readers just need to keep in mind that the vast majority of her focus here is on those with high functioning autism like herself.
*The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across The Spectrum* is hands down *brilliant.* Every parent and teacher of an autistic child should get a copy of this book and read it with highlighter in hand. In fact, Grandin has written a book that will help teenage autistic children understand their differences and *abilities.* And therein lies its brilliance.
The chapter called "Lighting Up the Autistic Brain" asks the question what does an autistic brain look like -- and is it different from a brain that has suffered trauma/injury? Grandin takes us to Schneider's Pittsburgh lab, where HDFT technology is literally lighting up those differences. For those of us with brain injuries, HDFT can illuminate which fibers are damaged and how many. But, as Schneider tells us, the autistic brain is *not* damaged. He says: " we're looking at anomalous growth, be it genetic, be it developmental, etc.,within that process." In other words, the autistic brain is not the product of trauma. It is not damaged. It's *different.* I'm still pondering the profundity of this concept and how the book leads us to examine the autistic differences of being.
*The Autistic Brain* is part memoir and part scientific exploration of the multiple differences of the autistic brain. Don't be but off by the science part of it. Temple Grandin writes in a way that is uncomplicated and direct. She makes sense of a very complex subject. (Her explanation of the "kinds" of autism is one of the best I've ever read.) Because she lives the differences inherent in autism, we come to see those differences and respect them. Grandin calls these different ways of thought Picture Thinking, Word/Fact Thinking, and Pattern Thinking. In the margin of my copy, I wrote: The theory of multiple intelligences for people with autism. Right on!
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