Review of a Professional Resource

Sayers, Bonnie. "Looking After Louis Review." 2006. <http://www.epinions.com/content_220221509252>

Bonnie Sayers is the editor for Autism Spectrum Disorder site and mother of two sons with autism. The full review can be found on this site.

After reading her review on "Looking after Louis," it confirmed some of the beliefs I had before I read the book. I did question whether or not Louis was necessarily autistic because he seemed to only repeat things. Sayers wrote, "Louis is the new boy at school, who sits and stares often at the wall. It seems from the text that Louis might have echolalia. According to Wikipedia, 'Echolalia is the repetition or echoing of verbal utterances made by another person. Up to 75% of autistics exhibit echolalia in some form.'" She also went on to say, "Louis would repeat portions of the conversation other children would participate in, when he was addressed by the teacher or another child he would repeat it. There was never any mention of a speech issue or echolalia from the teacher. The children often laughed finding this funny, without really benefiting from an explanation to the behavior." I agreed with this as well. I wasn't quite sure how I to take this information, yet when I saw that this book was considered for the Dolly Gray Award, I almost forgot my thoughts. That just goes to show the importance of looking critically at texts and how they represent their data, and not base a book "good" because they were offered an award.

Sayers goes on to point out, "The recess page spread lacks utilizing support for the children and Louis during the outside break. There is no one watching over Louis or helping to facilitate socialization among the students," and it's not even until later that it mentions that Louis has an aide to help him, yet she's also misrepresented as well. Another good point in which Sayers mentions is, "The data listed at the back of the book on autism includes, 'Louis is able to watch and learn from his peers and to practice social skills, while his classmates learn empathy and respect for individual differences.' As a reader of Looking After Louis I did not find that to be true since the children were laughing and not given any assistance during recess with the end result being Louis got to play outside another time that they could only sit in the classroom and peer out the window." When I first read the book, there were parts of it that bothered me, yet I couldn't think of what bothered me. After reading Sayer's review, it helped me to look at the book much more critically and how the other two books I chose do a much better representation of children with autism. Although I did like the message of acceptance and of that being different is ok, I didn't really think of the children laughing and making fun. Yet, children in classrooms can and do make fun of others, but in this book, it could've been handled and written differently to promote good behavior and true acceptance.

Sayers also has a book review of Ian's Walk: A Story About Autism and highly recommends that book. Review can be found on: http://www.epinions.com/content_60247608964

Another great source for reading about families with children with autism is Souls: Beneath and Beyond Autism by, Sharon Rosenbloom, photographs by Thomas Balsamo. This book has excellent pictures of autistic children with family members, as well as content as to how families handle the struggles and challenges, as well as the responsibilities and love they have with their children with autism. Rosenbloom is a speech and language pathologist and parent of a teenage son with autism. She writes about the thoughts of parents and finding out about the diagnosis, as well as living with their child and the hopes they have. I highly recommend this book, which gives a powerful, yet beautiful and honest description of children with autism.