Autism Books for Children With Aspergers

There is no shortage of great books for you to learn from. I thought I would share my short list with you, so that you can continue to learn about tips and solutions to prosper with Aspergers.

Autism Spectrum Books #1: The first favorite of mine is Solutions for Adults with Asperger’s Syndrome: Maximizing the Benefits, Minimizing the Drawbacks to Achieve Success, written by Dr. Juanita P. Lovett. I love this book because it is written from a positive standpoint. Dr. Lovett is a psychologist with over 25 years of experience. I recently utilized her chapter on How Marriage Is Affected by Aspergers Syndrome in writing my most recent post for my blog, Spectrum Solutions, at Psychology Today.

Autism Spectrum Books #2: Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s, by John Elder Robinson. This gentleman tells his story about his life growing up with Aspergers, undiagnosed, until he was in middle adulthood. He tells his story with sensitivity, yet with humor. You know those smoking guitars from the band KISS? Well, he designed those! He also runs his own very successful high end car restoration business. You can find out a little more about him in the Google author video below:

Autism Spectrum Books #3: Navigating the Social World: A Curriculum for Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome, High Functioning Autism and Related Disorders, by Dr. Jeanette McAffee is one of my favorites that I use in teaching social skills to children with Aspergers. (And if you are an adult with Aspergers, you can benefit from all of these exercises as well). This book is divided into sections as follows:

Recognizing and Coping with One’s Own Emotions

Communication and Social Skills Abstact

Thinking Skills Behavioral Issues

These programs are broken down into very easy to understand exercises to help you, whether child or adult, make sense of the often confusing world of social and non-verbal cues.

Autism Books #4

Thinking About You, Thinking About Me, written by speech therapist Michelle Garcia Winner. I’m still wrapping my brain around this book, which is chock full with tips for teaching persons on the autism spectrum. She has pioneered an approach called perspective taking and social thinking. And I love that she has reframed some of the difficulties children with Aspergers face: social cognitive learning challenges.

She has written a lot of her curriculum to be user friendly for teachers and for incorporating objectives into a child’s Individual Education Plan.

There are eleven information packed chapters covering perspective taking, keys to perspective taking, four steps to communication (enhancing perspective taking knowledge and skills, establishing physical presence, thinking with your eyes, and using language to develop and sustain relationships), social behavior mapping, the ME Binder: teaching children about their IEP’s (Individual Education Plan), a healthy perspective on dynamic social thinking assessment.

Autism Spectrum Books #5:

Pretending to Be Normal: Living With Asperger’s Syndrome written by Lianne Holliday Willey is another beautiful, painful, yet hope filled story of a very talented woman who grew up not knowing she had Aspergers syndrome. In fact, she did not figure it out until her own daughter was diagnosed with Aspergers.

If you enjoyed some of these reviews, check out the books I’ve talked about. Also, feel free to stop by my Autism Spectrum Books page on this site for other suggestions of books you can read to expand your knowledge of and tips for living successfully with Aspergers syndrome. .