I recently finished reading Jenny McCarthy’s new book about her son and his recovery from autism. As I’m sure this book has been talked about extensively on the internet and in other forums, as she has been making the rounds of the talk-show circuit, I will keep this brief and to the point.

There is much of the book that will resonate with many parents of ASD kids. For the most part the book was very readable, and only took a few hours to finish. For me this was both a good and bad point. Her sense of humour and openness made her very easy to relate to and I think she endeavored to pass on some useful information but may have been “hamstrung” by her publisher’s legal department. For parents that have been dealing with ASD for some time, and have been doing some research, there is little that will be new here. But, as she mentions in the book this may serve as more of a “my child has just been diagnosed with Autism- Now what?” brochure.

I even found the resources section at the end of the book to be very limited, especially in light of the amount of research/reading she alludes to, and of little help to us at this point. I also took issue with other aspects of the book but as they are my opinions and not really relevant to the information she tries to convey I will keep them to myself, but suffice it to say dads get a bad rap in my opinion.

I do commend her for coming out so strongly in the public. As someone with a certain amount of celebrity, in a culture so focussed on appearance and the perception of perfection it speaks loudly of her resolve and commitment to the subject matter to speak so candidly. I hope, as I’m sure she does, that this will draw more attention (and resources) into this area as it is so badly needed (read some of her statistics).

For someone just starting to investigate ASD this would not be a bad choice. It paints a realistic picture of what is required to not only cope with ASD but to struggle and labour to ensure your child is getting what is required to make as much progress as possible. However, it is definitely just a starting point and much more research and reading would be required to keep your child on the path to improvement.

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