Reviews
Sue Hooton, Education Officer/Children's Nurse
This is probably one of the most practical and resourceful books that I have ever had the pleasure to read. The book is written to help parents, nursery workers and early years' teachers to work with young autistic children. a lot of the text also applies to children with ADHD. I feel that it would also be off immense value to nurses or any other professional group working closely with autistic children. the book builds upon the context of 'reclaiming' the autistic child, to help unpack years of anti-development patterns and behaviours and replace them with meaningful, interactive behaviours through activities, games and other mutually enjoyable strategies.
The most impressive aspect of the book is the detail that is provided in each chapter. The author brings her knowledge and experience alive through actual stories and real life examples of working with children across the total spectrum of autism. The clever use of everyday analogies also helps to convey complex behaviours and itneractions and makes the book particularly user-friendly. This book is most remarkable in how it manages to reassure the reader that autism is difficult and complex and it is ok to feel frustrated and inadequate in trying to communicate with this group of youngsters, whilst gently encouraging different approaches and new interactive strategies.
Julia Scotland, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist (Autism)
This is a book to recommend to parents distraught by the recent disclosure that their young child has an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and by the discovery that there are no local services to meet their child's needs.
The author, a psychologist with over 10 years experience working with young children with ASD, gives parents hope. She describes how it is possible to adapt typical parenting strategies to harness the strengths and potential of their child.
She affirms the importance of early intervention, and proposes an interaction approach that parents and carers use at every opportunity. The emphasis is on having fun so that playfulness provides positive experiences of social communication contact. There is a discussion on shared attention and strategies for communication, rather than training meaningless speech.
The author suggests strategies for responding positively to behaviours that parents would like to see more of, and for discouraging socially unacceptable behaviours. She graphically describes the possibilities of the human face as a cause-and-effect toy that can be used to encourage interaction, and also outlines the value of music and song in engaging a child and in making daily activities meaningful. She presents ideas to move the child with ASD forward in their symbolic development.
Anybody feeling de-skilled as they try to enable learning in a young child with ASD will find this book sound, practical and reassuring.
Contents * * * * *
Readability * * * * *
Value * * * * *
Achim Perner (translation by Anna Mayer)
Original in: Arbeitshefte 29/30, Kinderpsychoanalyse, June 2001, Gesamthochschule Kassel, Wissenschaftliches Zentrum II
In recent publications about Autism, psychoanalysis is barely mentioned and seen as outdated. In particular, psychoanalysis is accused of putting additional blame on mothers, who are already suffering enough, and of offering nothing but expensive therapies that amount to little in the end. They claim latest research to have shown that autism is basically a complicated neurological rather than a psychodynamic disorder. If this accusation is ever substantiated, will it is always with the same name: Bruno Bettelheim. What is not mentioned is that Bettelheim was the first ever to actually attempt a systematic residential therapy of autistic children. However, his concept of establishing a friendly and supportive therapeutic environment that is tailored entirely to the needs of the children, is in fact exactly the same as those therapies and training programmes that want nothing to do with psychoanalysis, and thus have no idea what they owe to it.
There is also never any mention (presumably because it isn’t even noticed) that psychoanalysts have continued their work after Bettelheim's last monograph on the treatment of autistic children was published in 1967, developing very different theories and concepts for treatment, some in detailed case-studies. Let me only mention Margaret Mahler, Frances Tustin, Esther Bick, Donald Meltzer, Thomas Ogden, Anne Alvarez, Maria Rhode from the English-speaking world and Maud Mannoni, Rosine and Robert Lefort, Geneviève Haag, Piera Aulagnier and Marie-Christine Laznik-Penot from France, – the list could go on. Psychoanalysis is not criticised by modern autism research, which would be legitimate and useful, - it is simply ignored. This is not only wrong, but it also does not help the autistic children.
So it has long been overdue for someone to stand up and put a stop to all this with a definite ‘No!’. Sibylle Janert does not say such a ‘no’, although psychoanalysis is her starting point, - and she is right not to. Because if she did, her book would not find its readers. Her primary goal is not to promote psychoanalysis, but to help autistic children. She refers almost exclusively to the latest clinical and psychological research, which has finally ended up at exactly the same point where psychoanalysis started: the realization that at the core of autism is a basic dysfunction in the intersubjective relationship. The autistic child does not want to know the other, rejects social contact and turns away in self-protection. And this is precisely the starting point of Sibylle Janert's book, - after all, any therapy or training can only take place within a relationship. But that is exactly what autistic children have such problems with. Thus, at the beginning of any work there is the seemingly hopeless question of how to get into contact with an autistic child.
In her introduction, Janert tells us that the book is what she (like many others) had been looking for in vain when she started to work with autistic children. After many years of working with children on the autistic spectrum, and as a consultant to therapeutic and educational organisations, her book is written for all those who deal with autistic children on a daily basis, in nurseries or schools. Her starting point is the common experience that the autistic child is not quite as helpless and cut off as it often seems: "He can do lots of things. The trouble is, he just will not do them. He simply is not motivated to cooperate. (…) It is the wanting that is so unbelievably absent in the autistic child; the wanting to communicate, wanting to know, wanting to cooperate." (p.1) In other words, an autistic child shows no interest in another person, or in what psychological research calls "joint attention". He does not play or laugh, does not cry or take part in intersubjective interaction. This is the problem we all face when confronted with an autistic child: How can we make contact with a child who does not want contact?
Janert pursues relentlessly a well thought-through path based on two underlying assumptions: If the autistic child does not actively engage with his carers, then it is them who have to provide all the active engagement. And if it is true that autistic children are "severely developmentally delayed", then attempts to reach them must not be aimed at their chronological age, but at much earlier developmental stages. Janert adds another idea which forms the fundamental attitude of her inventive practice: According to the principles of communication theory it is simply impossible not to communicate. When I turn away from somebody, not wanting to give a reply or show a response, that is in itself a response and thus a communicative act. In this way Janert consistently understands (or interprets) the avoidant behaviour of autistic children that creates such problems for parents and educators as a communicative act, which can be attentively observed, studied and then also be understood and given a suitable response. This understanding is the decisive feature of her method: She does not try to establish communicative contact with a child to change his difficult behaviour but understands his behaviour itself as a communication.
Based on these ideas, which she describes briefly and almost in passing, Janert's book offers a wide range of vivid and instructive examples from her own direct work with autistic children which aims at awakening and captivating the autistic child’s interest in a playful manner. To this end, Janert returns to the earlier developmental stages of the well-known ‘as-if’ games which all mothers play with their babies. It is those simple games of suspense and surprise that play with each others’ expectations, that don’t need toys and which no child, whether autistic or not, can resist: Will that finger that is coming towards my tummy in that playfully threatening way touch it or not? Will that ominously exaggerated voice turn into a smiling or an ambiguous face? What will the adult do next, who just crawled away from me in just he same way as I did before?
Giving practical examples, Janert develops in her book a wide range of communicative games: over- and under-exaggerations loaded with meaning; rhythmical, rhyming, onomatopoeic and melodical voice games; surprising there-and-gone games; the game of the sudden approach of a face and its unexpected turning away, or a full spoon that suddenly takes a turn and does no longer come to get into the mouth, etc.. In this way any everyday situation can be turned into an ‘as-if’ game, the most important tools of which are the face, voice and hands. To give you just one example, let me tell you the story of a four-year-old boy whose constant hyperactivity drove his carers to despair. Continuously on the move and picking up objects, he then broke them, dunked them in paint, covered them with sand and eventually tried to run out of the room never satisfied. His behaviour continuous "No!" from the staff, that had no effect beyond the moment. The situation changed once his behaviour was understood by staff as a cry for help and attention rather than a constant irritation. Of course it was impossible to know what he was really looking for, but by whispering his name quietly and ominously rather than shouting an authoritarian "No!" it was possible for the first time to actually catch his attention, giving his search a new direction, which from them on led him into rather than out of the group.
Janert's strategy of playfully awakening the autistic child’s interest is certainly no miracle cure. Apart from a lot of patient perseverance, it also requires a playful seriousness and a mischieviously affectionate sense of humour, - without his such games would never come to mind. Her book really is a huge help when dealing with autistic children on an everyday basis and in pedagogical or therapeutic work. I know of no other book that demonstrates practically useful ways in such naturally convincing and simple ways. All who live or work with autistic children should read it. It is therefore to be hoped, that it should soon be translated into German.
Bibliography
Email: info@reachingautism.org
Sue Hooton, Education Officer/Children's Nurse
This is probably one of the most practical and resourceful books that I have ever had the pleasure to read. The book is written to help parents, nursery workers and early years' teachers to work with young autistic children. a lot of the text also applies to children with ADHD. I feel that it would also be off immense value to nurses or any other professional group working closely with autistic children. the book builds upon the context of 'reclaiming' the autistic child, to help unpack years of anti-development patterns and behaviours and replace them with meaningful, interactive behaviours through activities, games and other mutually enjoyable strategies.
The most impressive aspect of the book is the detail that is provided in each chapter. The author brings her knowledge and experience alive through actual stories and real life examples of working with children across the total spectrum of autism. The clever use of everyday analogies also helps to convey complex behaviours and itneractions and makes the book particularly user-friendly. This book is most remarkable in how it manages to reassure the reader that autism is difficult and complex and it is ok to feel frustrated and inadequate in trying to communicate with this group of youngsters, whilst gently encouraging different approaches and new interactive strategies.
Julia Scotland, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist (Autism)
This is a book to recommend to parents distraught by the recent disclosure that their young child has an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and by the discovery that there are no local services to meet their child's needs.
The author, a psychologist with over 10 years experience working with young children with ASD, gives parents hope. She describes how it is possible to adapt typical parenting strategies to harness the strengths and potential of their child.
She affirms the importance of early intervention, and proposes an interaction approach that parents and carers use at every opportunity. The emphasis is on having fun so that playfulness provides positive experiences of social communication contact. There is a discussion on shared attention and strategies for communication, rather than training meaningless speech.
The author suggests strategies for responding positively to behaviours that parents would like to see more of, and for discouraging socially unacceptable behaviours. She graphically describes the possibilities of the human face as a cause-and-effect toy that can be used to encourage interaction, and also outlines the value of music and song in engaging a child and in making daily activities meaningful. She presents ideas to move the child with ASD forward in their symbolic development.
Anybody feeling de-skilled as they try to enable learning in a young child with ASD will find this book sound, practical and reassuring.
Contents * * * * *
Readability * * * * *
Value * * * * *
Achim Perner (translation by Anna Mayer)
Original in: Arbeitshefte 29/30, Kinderpsychoanalyse, June 2001, Gesamthochschule Kassel, Wissenschaftliches Zentrum II
In recent publications about Autism, psychoanalysis is barely mentioned and seen as outdated. In particular, psychoanalysis is accused of putting additional blame on mothers, who are already suffering enough, and of offering nothing but expensive therapies that amount to little in the end. They claim latest research to have shown that autism is basically a complicated neurological rather than a psychodynamic disorder. If this accusation is ever substantiated, will it is always with the same name: Bruno Bettelheim. What is not mentioned is that Bettelheim was the first ever to actually attempt a systematic residential therapy of autistic children. However, his concept of establishing a friendly and supportive therapeutic environment that is tailored entirely to the needs of the children, is in fact exactly the same as those therapies and training programmes that want nothing to do with psychoanalysis, and thus have no idea what they owe to it.
There is also never any mention (presumably because it isn’t even noticed) that psychoanalysts have continued their work after Bettelheim's last monograph on the treatment of autistic children was published in 1967, developing very different theories and concepts for treatment, some in detailed case-studies. Let me only mention Margaret Mahler, Frances Tustin, Esther Bick, Donald Meltzer, Thomas Ogden, Anne Alvarez, Maria Rhode from the English-speaking world and Maud Mannoni, Rosine and Robert Lefort, Geneviève Haag, Piera Aulagnier and Marie-Christine Laznik-Penot from France, – the list could go on. Psychoanalysis is not criticised by modern autism research, which would be legitimate and useful, - it is simply ignored. This is not only wrong, but it also does not help the autistic children.
So it has long been overdue for someone to stand up and put a stop to all this with a definite ‘No!’. Sibylle Janert does not say such a ‘no’, although psychoanalysis is her starting point, - and she is right not to. Because if she did, her book would not find its readers. Her primary goal is not to promote psychoanalysis, but to help autistic children. She refers almost exclusively to the latest clinical and psychological research, which has finally ended up at exactly the same point where psychoanalysis started: the realization that at the core of autism is a basic dysfunction in the intersubjective relationship. The autistic child does not want to know the other, rejects social contact and turns away in self-protection. And this is precisely the starting point of Sibylle Janert's book, - after all, any therapy or training can only take place within a relationship. But that is exactly what autistic children have such problems with. Thus, at the beginning of any work there is the seemingly hopeless question of how to get into contact with an autistic child.
In her introduction, Janert tells us that the book is what she (like many others) had been looking for in vain when she started to work with autistic children. After many years of working with children on the autistic spectrum, and as a consultant to therapeutic and educational organisations, her book is written for all those who deal with autistic children on a daily basis, in nurseries or schools. Her starting point is the common experience that the autistic child is not quite as helpless and cut off as it often seems: "He can do lots of things. The trouble is, he just will not do them. He simply is not motivated to cooperate. (…) It is the wanting that is so unbelievably absent in the autistic child; the wanting to communicate, wanting to know, wanting to cooperate." (p.1) In other words, an autistic child shows no interest in another person, or in what psychological research calls "joint attention". He does not play or laugh, does not cry or take part in intersubjective interaction. This is the problem we all face when confronted with an autistic child: How can we make contact with a child who does not want contact?
Janert pursues relentlessly a well thought-through path based on two underlying assumptions: If the autistic child does not actively engage with his carers, then it is them who have to provide all the active engagement. And if it is true that autistic children are "severely developmentally delayed", then attempts to reach them must not be aimed at their chronological age, but at much earlier developmental stages. Janert adds another idea which forms the fundamental attitude of her inventive practice: According to the principles of communication theory it is simply impossible not to communicate. When I turn away from somebody, not wanting to give a reply or show a response, that is in itself a response and thus a communicative act. In this way Janert consistently understands (or interprets) the avoidant behaviour of autistic children that creates such problems for parents and educators as a communicative act, which can be attentively observed, studied and then also be understood and given a suitable response. This understanding is the decisive feature of her method: She does not try to establish communicative contact with a child to change his difficult behaviour but understands his behaviour itself as a communication.
Based on these ideas, which she describes briefly and almost in passing, Janert's book offers a wide range of vivid and instructive examples from her own direct work with autistic children which aims at awakening and captivating the autistic child’s interest in a playful manner. To this end, Janert returns to the earlier developmental stages of the well-known ‘as-if’ games which all mothers play with their babies. It is those simple games of suspense and surprise that play with each others’ expectations, that don’t need toys and which no child, whether autistic or not, can resist: Will that finger that is coming towards my tummy in that playfully threatening way touch it or not? Will that ominously exaggerated voice turn into a smiling or an ambiguous face? What will the adult do next, who just crawled away from me in just he same way as I did before?
Giving practical examples, Janert develops in her book a wide range of communicative games: over- and under-exaggerations loaded with meaning; rhythmical, rhyming, onomatopoeic and melodical voice games; surprising there-and-gone games; the game of the sudden approach of a face and its unexpected turning away, or a full spoon that suddenly takes a turn and does no longer come to get into the mouth, etc.. In this way any everyday situation can be turned into an ‘as-if’ game, the most important tools of which are the face, voice and hands. To give you just one example, let me tell you the story of a four-year-old boy whose constant hyperactivity drove his carers to despair. Continuously on the move and picking up objects, he then broke them, dunked them in paint, covered them with sand and eventually tried to run out of the room never satisfied. His behaviour continuous "No!" from the staff, that had no effect beyond the moment. The situation changed once his behaviour was understood by staff as a cry for help and attention rather than a constant irritation. Of course it was impossible to know what he was really looking for, but by whispering his name quietly and ominously rather than shouting an authoritarian "No!" it was possible for the first time to actually catch his attention, giving his search a new direction, which from them on led him into rather than out of the group.
Janert's strategy of playfully awakening the autistic child’s interest is certainly no miracle cure. Apart from a lot of patient perseverance, it also requires a playful seriousness and a mischieviously affectionate sense of humour, - without his such games would never come to mind. Her book really is a huge help when dealing with autistic children on an everyday basis and in pedagogical or therapeutic work. I know of no other book that demonstrates practically useful ways in such naturally convincing and simple ways. All who live or work with autistic children should read it. It is therefore to be hoped, that it should soon be translated into German.
Bibliography
Email: info@reachingautism.org
