Perhaps one of our greatest frustrations in trying to recover our children with autism spectrum disorders is teaching the rest of the world that a biomedical approach is sane, safe, and sound. The problem, I have found over the years, is that all too often, as we start talking about treatment, the conversation gets twisted up in opinions about the cause, and before you know it, communication breaks down.
In an effort to bridge this communication gap, I have written Healing Our Autistic Children. Those of us who have looked through our Galilean telescopes and discovered that the world is in fact round, that autism is a treatable disease, only ever want one thing. We want the rest of the world to come have a look through our telescope. This book, in speaking less about cause and more about treatment, should provide a palatable invitation for others to come have a look through our telescope, to build communication bridges, and get more people involved in helping to recover the now 1 in 91 children with autism.
With Healing Our Autistic Children, I have focused on the medical treatment. In hopes of building communication bridges between the initiated and the uninitiated, I have created a primer for the layperson who wants a relatively brief and very understandable introduction to the medical aspects of the disease of autism. I have explained the science using the visual imagery, real life analogies interwoven with stories of patients. Included at the end of the 250 page book are some of the most current and important abstracts published in the medical literature that are the body of science I explained in the text of the book.
Many of the groups in the autism community have previewed this book. They have decided that the autism community, as it has done many times in the past, needs to come together again to speak with one loud voice. January 10, 2010 will be Build a Bridge Day. On 1-10-10, as one body, the autism community will purchase and then deliver Healing Our Autistic Children to every teacher, therapist, congressman, insurance company, media member, physician and family member with whom we want or have been trying to communicate.
