Book Review
☆☆☆☆☆ 5 out of 5 stars
MUST READ! THIS BOOK IS GOLD!
“Learning the Language of Autism Through the Senses” is an
incredibly powerful “must read” for any parent, educator, therapist, caregiver
and/or friend of an autistic individual. Belle speaks from the heart and
vulnerably shares her wealth of knowledge from firsthand experience of both
raising her autistic son along with her professional background of being a
nursery nurse in the UK. Belle takes the reader through a compassionate but
massively eye-opening journey to understand what it’s like to be autistic.
The first half of the book sets the stage on humanistic
principles of the importance of accepting all neurotypes and guiding parents
and caregivers on how to find support. The second half is focused on deep
diving into each of the sensory systems. Belle takes the reader further than
simply having an awareness of each system (auditory, tactile, visual,
interoception, proprioception, taste, smell, vestibular) She gives concrete
examples of how sensory challenges might be communicated and/or managed through
behaviors.
Here is the magic. She beautifully helps the reader link
autistic behaviors to possibilities of what they actually might mean! I
wholeheartedly agree that “Every behavior has a real, logical meaning to the
person communicating and experiencing it.” For example, she describes how her
son sometimes claps or laughs when he is eating crunchy foods, She has cleverly
inferred that his auditory sensitivities have made eating crunchy food very
difficult/uncomfortable because it is an overwhelmingly loud internal experience
for him. Thus, he makes a loud vocal sound himself to balance out or dim down
the sound the crunching of his toast makes. “He also claps loudly which enables
him to eat and cope with the intense sensory experience. Stopping him from
doing this whilst eating would be detrimental to his health and wellbeing.”
That makes so much sense!
As a neurotypical speech language pathologist with over 10
years of experience working with autistic individuals, I am blown away by the
content of this book. I wish I had a guide like this early in my career. The
agony and frustrations which I have witnessed in the clinic setting (such as
children crying, screaming, running away, shutting down, crawling under the
table) would have made so much more sense had I had I better understanding of
what they may have been experiencing internally.
Lastly, I love how Belle shares so many real-life examples
of how overwhelm can show up in autistic individuals. She empowers the reader
with tools to be able to best understand and thus support their children. I
also enjoyed how she shares in everyday terms/language. It is written almost as
kind, down to earth conversation with the reader rather than a cold/disengaged
text of scientific information.
To summarize, GET THIS BOOK! READ IT! THEN READ IT AGAIN!
Thank you so much, Belle.
- Jillian Caballero, M.A., CCC-SLP (Speech Language
Pathologist) Ferndale, WA, USA
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