I am the parent of an 11-year-old boy with Asperger's Syndrome, or high-functioning autism (diagnosed at 5). We have struggled mightily in recent years, despite reading virtually everything out there on Asperger's (God bless Tony Attwood!), and have been perplexed as to how to address the ADHD symptoms my son displays. I couldn't understand (nor could any doctors) why ADHD treatment failed him, and often seemed to backfire and produce an opposite of the desired result. I found this book very enlightening. I think that the possibility that ADHD and autism spectrum disorders are part of the same continuum is quite feasible. Nowhere does the book say that they are the SAME disorder. I have 3 nephews who are autistic (all brothers), and even thought they fall under the general category of "autism", they have some very differnt behaviors from one another. So to say that ADHD CANNOT be "related" to autism (as some reviewers have claimed) becuse some behaviors are different is fautly reasoning, in my opinion. The term "continuum" implies that there are a wide range of behaviors, different with each child based on their intensity and a child's personality. If I've learned anything about autism over the years, it's that you cannot put autistic children in a "box" in terms of their behaviors; this is one thing that makes the disorder so difficult to understand.
I especially liked the section of this book that covers medication. The author (becuase she is not a doctor) does not attempt to deal with this herself, but has a specialist address meds. After many trials of Ritalin-based meds and Strattera with my son, we always got a more hyper, frazzled child. The book suggested that perhaps because many children with autism have "amplified" senses (my words), a little medication will go a long way. We cut my son's medication down to a quarter of what we'd originally tried, and saw improvement right away. So I guess I tend to lend some credence to the author's ascertations. I'd been lost in the topsy-turvy world of Asperger's vs. ADHD (and whether my son had BOTH, or if they were related)for a very long time, and while this book does not lend any conclusive answers (and doesn't claim to), it certainly gets the debate going, and offers some preliminary proof that they may be realted. Autism is so little understood, that I welcome the kind of research done by Ms. Kennedy. She does not have a degree in neurology, nor psychology, but she is thouroughly well self-taught (as all parents of a child with autism need to be!). I feel that this book has helped to at least direct our path of treatment with my son, and for that I am grateful. |
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