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Out of the Box: A one-stop guide to navigating neurodivergence
An increasing number of Australian children are being diagnosed with variations in their brain development. These can include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and dyslexia. Authors Madonna King and Rebecca Sparrow have surveyed and interviewed almost 2000 Australians – including medical experts, educators, neurodivergent children and their parents – to gather together the best and most useful tips to ensure neurodivergent children take their rightful place in classrooms and beyond. Out of the Box offers best-practice advice on navigating diagnosis and ongoing challenges, such as finding friends and learning at school. It also provides vital advice for teens, including driving, living independently and applying for jobs. This essential guide provides hope, insight and practical help for the neurodivergent child's journey and the parents, teachers, friends and family who share it.
304 pages, Paperback
Published January 29, 2025
36 people are currently reading
129 people want to read
About the author
Madonna King
14 books12 followersMadonna King is an award-winning journalist, commentator and author. She has spent 25 years working as a journalist in Brisbane, Sydney, the Canberra press gallery and the United States.
Ian Frazer: The man who saved a million lives is Madonna’s fourth book. Her previous titles include Catalyst, which looks at the media, politics and the law; One-Way Ticket (co-authored with Cindy Wockner), an investigation into the lives of the Bali 9; and A Generous Helping (co-authored with Alison Alexander), which drew on the community to create a best-selling recipe collection to raise money for victims of the 2011 Queensland floods.
Madonna also writes a weekly column for The Courier-Mail, sits on three not-for-profit boards, and travels Australia facilitating and moderating events.
Ian Frazer: The man who saved a million lives is Madonna’s fourth book. Her previous titles include Catalyst, which looks at the media, politics and the law; One-Way Ticket (co-authored with Cindy Wockner), an investigation into the lives of the Bali 9; and A Generous Helping (co-authored with Alison Alexander), which drew on the community to create a best-selling recipe collection to raise money for victims of the 2011 Queensland floods.
Madonna also writes a weekly column for The Courier-Mail, sits on three not-for-profit boards, and travels Australia facilitating and moderating events.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 16, 2025
Non-fiction that is informative, engaging and written with compassion.
This is a helpful book for parents, educators, health professionals and family members to understand neurodiversity and support neurodiverse children.
I love the inclusion of Emily Perl Kingsley’s 1987 essay of ‘Welcome to Holland’.
This book offers the current, best-practice advice for navigating diagnosis, education and ongoing challenges.
This is a helpful book for parents, educators, health professionals and family members to understand neurodiversity and support neurodiverse children.
I love the inclusion of Emily Perl Kingsley’s 1987 essay of ‘Welcome to Holland’.
This book offers the current, best-practice advice for navigating diagnosis, education and ongoing challenges.
December 17, 2024
I found this book very negative and I couldn't finish it. I have infant children (Nuerodivergent) and decided to read this book to further my knowledge and stay abreast in the area. It has a lot of information based on interviews and research from parents of older neurodivergent children (school aged and above), as well professionals who work in the industry however the stories only filled me with dread and anxiety for the future. There were a few strategies to help, the checklists were good but if you're new to this world of parenting nuerodiverse children/ you have infant children or your child just got diagnosed- I wouldn't recommend it.
April 6, 2025
As an autistic person with experience across the wide spectrum of autistic people and their support networks, I read Out of the Box with mixed feelings. The book presents itself as a multi-voiced guide for parents, teachers, and policymakers. And yes, many voices are heard: parents, children, educators. Yet many perspectives are absent—particularly those of autistic adults who do not mask successfully, who are not conventionally “thriving,” or who cannot express their stories in eloquent language.
The opening line from 17-year-old Molly—“Life. Because the world isn’t made for people like me.”—hit me hard. It's a feeling I know intimately, and one I’ve encountered in countless other autistic lives. Still, the book quickly shifts into a discourse that stretches the term neurodivergent to encompass ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and Tourette’s, diluting something essential about the lived experience of autism. The focus drifts away from the concrete, embodied world of autistic people toward a stylized image of “strong kids with talents.”
Some quotes linger in the mind:
“I’m lonely because my brain is different to everyone else, and I think differently.”
“I would just like to have a couple of friends that understand me and don’t think I am a weirdo.”
These words speak of existential loss—not just a “different way of thinking” that merely needs inclusion and understanding. The profound pain of being chronically misunderstood—by classmates, by teachers, even by professionals—is touched upon, but soon smoothed over by a layer of optimism about “how we as a community can support each other better.”
What struck me most, as an autistic reader, was how deeply the book leans into the idea of adaptation: schools adapting, parents adapting, classmates adapting. But where is the space for the inner chaos many autistic people describe? The invisible exhaustion? The lifelong confusion about why everything seems so hard?
One particularly painful but honest quote from a parent stood out to me:
“I get angry with people who don’t want a label. It’s not about them. It’s about their child. Interventions help and they learn how to navigate the world for themselves.”
This is the kind of realism I missed in the chapters that speak more broadly about “talent” and “the value of difference.” Because difference only becomes valuable when it can exist in safety. That requires more than positive framing or neurodiversity-friendly language. It demands space for grief, for difficult life stories, for children who cannot express their needs—children who can't explain why they no longer want to go to school, but collapse crying on the floor each morning. Parents who are at a loss.
Another notable absence is any serious discussion of the NDIS, Australia’s disability support system. While the book promises to offer “a clear path ahead,” it glosses over just how inaccessible that path often is—unless one is articulate, assertive, tech-savvy, and resilient. The line, “An autism diagnosis isn’t as scary as it seems. A proper diagnosis opens the right doors to the supports you need.”
rings false for many of the people I know, myself included. A diagnosis often opens not doors but an administrative battlefield that can last for years. An autism diagnosis may offer clarity (and get you in contact with the autism community), but rarely gets you immediate support.
I genuinely appreciated the many quotes from children and parents. They give the book emotional depth and honesty. But as an autistic adult, I would have liked to hear more from those who cannot speak for themselves—the ones who don’t fill in surveys, who can’t access podcasts or webinars, the families where trauma and poverty overshadow everything else.
Out of the Box is clearly a book written with care, good intentions, and many practical insights. But it remains rooted in a middle-class lens on autism and ADHD. The realities of structural exclusion, chronic sensory overload, long-term burnout, and complex family dynamics remain underexplored. The book calls on society to be more understanding, but rarely turns a critical gaze towards that society. Readers who resonate with the optimistic narrative of neurodiversity will find much to value here. Those working daily with the raw, unfiltered edges of autism may miss depth, confrontation, and a critique of the systems that fail us.
The opening line from 17-year-old Molly—“Life. Because the world isn’t made for people like me.”—hit me hard. It's a feeling I know intimately, and one I’ve encountered in countless other autistic lives. Still, the book quickly shifts into a discourse that stretches the term neurodivergent to encompass ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and Tourette’s, diluting something essential about the lived experience of autism. The focus drifts away from the concrete, embodied world of autistic people toward a stylized image of “strong kids with talents.”
Some quotes linger in the mind:
“I’m lonely because my brain is different to everyone else, and I think differently.”
“I would just like to have a couple of friends that understand me and don’t think I am a weirdo.”
These words speak of existential loss—not just a “different way of thinking” that merely needs inclusion and understanding. The profound pain of being chronically misunderstood—by classmates, by teachers, even by professionals—is touched upon, but soon smoothed over by a layer of optimism about “how we as a community can support each other better.”
What struck me most, as an autistic reader, was how deeply the book leans into the idea of adaptation: schools adapting, parents adapting, classmates adapting. But where is the space for the inner chaos many autistic people describe? The invisible exhaustion? The lifelong confusion about why everything seems so hard?
One particularly painful but honest quote from a parent stood out to me:
“I get angry with people who don’t want a label. It’s not about them. It’s about their child. Interventions help and they learn how to navigate the world for themselves.”
This is the kind of realism I missed in the chapters that speak more broadly about “talent” and “the value of difference.” Because difference only becomes valuable when it can exist in safety. That requires more than positive framing or neurodiversity-friendly language. It demands space for grief, for difficult life stories, for children who cannot express their needs—children who can't explain why they no longer want to go to school, but collapse crying on the floor each morning. Parents who are at a loss.
Another notable absence is any serious discussion of the NDIS, Australia’s disability support system. While the book promises to offer “a clear path ahead,” it glosses over just how inaccessible that path often is—unless one is articulate, assertive, tech-savvy, and resilient. The line, “An autism diagnosis isn’t as scary as it seems. A proper diagnosis opens the right doors to the supports you need.”
rings false for many of the people I know, myself included. A diagnosis often opens not doors but an administrative battlefield that can last for years. An autism diagnosis may offer clarity (and get you in contact with the autism community), but rarely gets you immediate support.
I genuinely appreciated the many quotes from children and parents. They give the book emotional depth and honesty. But as an autistic adult, I would have liked to hear more from those who cannot speak for themselves—the ones who don’t fill in surveys, who can’t access podcasts or webinars, the families where trauma and poverty overshadow everything else.
Out of the Box is clearly a book written with care, good intentions, and many practical insights. But it remains rooted in a middle-class lens on autism and ADHD. The realities of structural exclusion, chronic sensory overload, long-term burnout, and complex family dynamics remain underexplored. The book calls on society to be more understanding, but rarely turns a critical gaze towards that society. Readers who resonate with the optimistic narrative of neurodiversity will find much to value here. Those working daily with the raw, unfiltered edges of autism may miss depth, confrontation, and a critique of the systems that fail us.
April 4, 2025
Broken into sections, this book covers everything from diagnosis, friendships to education, transitioning to adulthood and the future. I really enjoyed the quotes from professionals, parents and teachers woven throughout the authors findings, and this book would benefit readers differently depending on the reasons behind reading it. It is very current and shares both sides of the coin e.g. sharing challenges around friendships and also sharing stories of those who have positive friendships too. I do think it could be overwhelming if you’re at the beginning of the journey of seeking a diagnosis for a child and end up reading the whole book through the teen and adult sections, because often it’s best just to focus on where you are right now rather than tackling challenges you may have in 10+ years. I appreciate the insights that are shared in this book and will be referencing it when it is in the years to come. Because of the books content I have chosen not to give it a rating because each readers experience will be different.
February 23, 2025
I couldn't finish this book. The tone did not feel neuroaffirming at all to me. There also seemed to be very little advice or strategies (I did skim all the way through the book since I didn't finish it) - it mostly just outlined challenges you may need to be aware of which doesn't feel helpful. It's good to be aware of what may lie ahead, but it nearly felt fear mongering in parts... I also didn't enjoy the layout. The bolded quotes on each page were distracting and there seemed to be no reason for them being set above the rest of the text.
January 26, 2025
‘A one stop shop’ is far from what this book is- despite some resources at the end which look quite useful this book lacked the advice and knowledge that I’m assuming most people would be reading it for. It was more a collation of experiences of the ND community, most of which were negative. Pretty disappointing overall
July 8, 2025
Lots of good information on a range of topics. But although there are lists of resources at the end of the book there are no endnotes or footnotes. I know not everyone wants to read end notes or footnotes but not having them at all means there is no way to verify what is written.
August 30, 2025
This is a good overarching "here's the story of neurodivergence, and anecdotes of experiences". I was seeking tips to support my kid with ADHD. i found 1 or 2 interesting nuggets of info, but not quite the tangible tips I hoped for.
January 25, 2025
The intention of this book is great. My kids are ND but not autism so I felt a lot didn’t apply and negative as a result.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews