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Through the Eyes of Aliens: A Book About Autistic People
This is a rich and positive description of how it feels to be autistic and how friends, family and the professionals that work with autistic people can be more sensitive to their needs. Jasmine Lee O'Neill, autistic herself, perceives the creativity, imagination and keenly-felt sensory world of the autistic person as gifts. She argues that 'normalizing' autistic people - pushing them into behaving in a way that is alien to their true natures - is not just ineffective but wrong. In this vivid and enjoyable book, she challenges the reader to accept their difference and to celebrate their uniqueness. The book contains a wealth of insight into the autistic world and the author covers all the main topics of most concern for people with autism. She identifies the reasons for particular characteristic behaviour and is both clear and sensitive about whether, and if how so, the autistic person should be encouraged to adapt such behaviours. Drawn from her own experience, she has many suggestions for ways in which the 'normal' world can shape itself to work around the behavioural characteristics of autistic people. Her book is for anyone who is interested in learning more about autism, including families and friends of autistic people, doctors and therapists, and all those who work with them. It will also prove a source of inspiration to autistic people themselves.
144 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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April 26, 2015My views on this book have changed over the years. When I first got the book, it was the only book by an autistic person that was unabashedly saying "It's okay to be who you are." Because of this, I slept with it under my pillow, I took it everywhere with me, because it said, in plain English, "It's okay to be you." And I needed to hear that.
That sentiment is much more common these days, and there's a much wider variety of books to choose from. Rereading this book again, I come at it with mixed feelings. I still like it a lot. But she says things about autism that I know are not true. And she can't seem to divorce her own experience of autism from other people's experiences of autism in general: Something you have to be able to do if you write a book about autism, rather than merely an autobiography (or "autiebiography" as autistic people often call them). She also gets confused about things like selective mutism and elective mutism. She thinks they're two different conditions. They're actually two words for one condition, elective mutism was discarded when they realized that people were not choosing to be mute.
That said... she says a lot of important things in this book. They're sometimes well-hidden, just a sentence or two here and there. But they will be things that nobody else is saying, and that is important. That can make me really like a book, regardless of what else is in it. For instance, she talks about how some savants hide their savant skills, and how not all savant skills are readily visible. That was really important for me to understand at one point, and I have never heard anyone else, including the so-called experts, mention this side of savant syndrome. She also talks about how it's okay if autistic people stop talking because it's uncomfortable or unpleasant in some way, not just because they can't talk whatsoever. She herself went through a period of not speaking, which ended after several years. Many outsiders, and even some autistic people, think autistic people can be simply divided up into verbal and nonverbal, and this isn't the case.
So despite all the things I dislike about this book, I always come back to the things I like.
That sentiment is much more common these days, and there's a much wider variety of books to choose from. Rereading this book again, I come at it with mixed feelings. I still like it a lot. But she says things about autism that I know are not true. And she can't seem to divorce her own experience of autism from other people's experiences of autism in general: Something you have to be able to do if you write a book about autism, rather than merely an autobiography (or "autiebiography" as autistic people often call them). She also gets confused about things like selective mutism and elective mutism. She thinks they're two different conditions. They're actually two words for one condition, elective mutism was discarded when they realized that people were not choosing to be mute.
That said... she says a lot of important things in this book. They're sometimes well-hidden, just a sentence or two here and there. But they will be things that nobody else is saying, and that is important. That can make me really like a book, regardless of what else is in it. For instance, she talks about how some savants hide their savant skills, and how not all savant skills are readily visible. That was really important for me to understand at one point, and I have never heard anyone else, including the so-called experts, mention this side of savant syndrome. She also talks about how it's okay if autistic people stop talking because it's uncomfortable or unpleasant in some way, not just because they can't talk whatsoever. She herself went through a period of not speaking, which ended after several years. Many outsiders, and even some autistic people, think autistic people can be simply divided up into verbal and nonverbal, and this isn't the case.
So despite all the things I dislike about this book, I always come back to the things I like.
April 30, 2023
This was pretty good. I picked it up expecting it to be exploitative but it was written by a mute autistic lady. The more books like this the better, I think, since people struggle so much to understand autistics, and undiagnosed autistic adults must grapple with recontextualizing their lives. It is good to read a book like this.
September 23, 2010
the author spends a great deal of time telling the reader that each autistic child is different and spends equal time telling us how to or how not to treat an autistic child; which i am assuming is really how to treat her. it did give me a real sense of hope for the two grandchildren i have who are both autistic.
March 18, 2015
The first book I ever read about autism. The only book at our local library available at the time 12 years ago about autism and thank dog for that. Easy to read and so very insightful. I desperately wanted to know about autism from people with autism. A must read for every parent out there with a newly diagnosed child.
September 8, 2007
This booked helped me realize that I can give my special needs child a positive self-concept. It also inspired me to always focus on the positive characteristics he has and help him develop those.
January 17, 2009
Utterly fantastic insight into the world of Autism - An absolute must-read!!!!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews