Mary Wrobel

My feelings on this are mixed. The description on Amazon was rather misleading that this was an ideal book for parents on introducing concepts like puberty and sex to autistic children. It turned out that the book is more about developing such curricula for teachers, with a lot of bad clip art, PECS, and very grainy black and white pictures. But it does contain useful information and advice as well. The author clearly knows her subject matter and her frank, honest approach is refreshing. The print is large and the vocabulary is very simple so that it's approachable for kids across the spectrum. She knows to write without relying on similes, metaphors, and other plays on language that ones typically finds with these subjects.

I bought the book because my son is almost ten and I know we need to start discussing puberty, and I already know he's going to have a difficult time understanding it. The hygiene pages in here are also useful; we'll find useful the sections on nose-picking and putting hands in pants. The sexual education section discusses issues like masturbation (again, I appreciate her no-nonsense, approach; there's no moralizing here), stranger danger, the importance of clothing, and it offers very detailed advice of teaching autistic girls about periods. However, it doesn't discuss the act of sex, which was surprising because that seems like the most important part of sexual education.

I'll continue to look for a more comprehensive book on the subject, but I do think this is a good starting point, especially for special education teachers.… (más)