Empowered Autism Parenting: Celebrating (and Defending) Your Child's Place in the World

In the past twenty years, the number of children diagnosed with autism has exponentially grown; from 1 in 10,000 to as much as 1 in 150. For the millions of parents raising children with autism, the journey can be overwhelming, confusing, and stifling – not to mention costly. Instead of enabling professionals to define their child’s capabilities, parents need resources to help them gain the knowledge, compassion, and insight to trust themselves.

Most autism books are too often presented from a behavioral- or medical-model and written with an outsiders’ bias that focuses on the need to fix, recover and cure the autism “epidemic.” In contrast, EMPOWERED AUTISM PARENTING: Celebrating (and Defending) Your Child’s Place in the World (Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint; August 2009; $16.95 / Paper; ISBN: 978-0-470-47587-4), by William Stillman, an adult advocate living with Asperger’s Syndrome, encourages parents and educators to protect children with autism from being pathologized, over-medicated, and marginalized, in order to understand their unique personalities, passions, and intellect. Through his distinct inside out perspective, Stillman aims to reshape the collective understanding of persons with autism as intelligent, insightful and inspired human beings entitled to participate and contribute to life in the fullest.

With a wise and compassionate tone, Stillman shatters myths about high-cost autism therapies and medications and instead teaches simple principals on how to:

- Realize your own “autisms” in order to see how you and your child are more alike than different
- Understand your non-verbal child’s symbolic communications and reinterpret these behaviors as legitimate communication
- Discover how your child best thinks, learns and retains information
- Learn ten concrete ways you can enrich the relationship with your child through a belief in competence
- Gather relevant information to support your child in his or her treatment regime by using the appendix’s simple tools and resources

For parents, teachers, and counselors, EMPOWERED AUTISUM PARENTING highlights the perseverance and compassion required of those caring for children with autism. It is, as Stillman notes in the introduction, “not a how-to-parenting guide but a volume designed to help you navigate interactions with autism and medical professionals, educators, and the community at large in  manner that will inspire you to serve as your child’s voice until he is in a position to advocate for himself.”