Ask and Tell: Self-Advocacy and Disclosure for People on the Autism Spectrum

by Kassiane Sibley, Kassiane Sibley, Stephen M. Shore

Advocacy skills must be taught because they are essential to life success. Learn from people with autism on how to teach these skills! Edited by Stephen Shore, Ask and Self-Advocacy and Disclosure for People on the Autism Spectrum helps people with autism effectively self-advocate in their pursuit of independent, productive, and fulfilling lives. Ask and Tell is unique in that it's the first book to speak to the twin issues of self-advocacy and disclosure for people with autism. This book also discusses how advocacy begins in preschool and extends throughout the lifespan, with meaningful examples such as showing how people with autism have great value to society. It is written and illustrated entirely by individuals with autism, including a preface by Dr. Temple Grandin. Overall, successful self-advocacy involves a degree of disclosure about oneself that often carries some degree of risk in an effort to reach the goal of better mutual understanding. Ask and Tell offers countless practical ideas and advice adjusted for different personalities and personal preferences, and always backed by the real life experiences

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Disability, Nonfiction, Communication

216 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jamie Myers · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is some good (but also pretty commonly known) advice here. However, I have followed Kassiane's works for a while including her blog, and her idea of advocacy is being angry all the time, picking fights that doesn't have to be, and just getting offended by everyone and everything including many other advocates for people with autism. It is hard to take a book about advocacy written by someone who is keen on burning bridges and picking a ton of unnecessary fights. I read it anyways and I still feel that the book is short on useful information and hard to take seriously given the author's penchant for adversarial behavior with advocates and most people who pass through her life.

I was hoping it would be different, but I find the book and author (Kassiane) to be disingenuous. it is hard to take it seriously when the book talks about "mutual understanding" "positivity" while in real life her behavior is absolutely the opposite and thus lacking credibility with respect to actual advocacy work.

[Jessica]

Nick Walker mentions this book as one of the first that featured radical autistic voices critical of the pathology paradigm.

[Cynthia Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ask and Tell is an anthology with contributions by six autistic writers. Like most anthologies it’s a bit uneven in both quality and content. However, I got enough out of two of the six chapters for me to recommend it. The chapter titled “Help Me Help Myself: Teaching and Learning” is by far the one I found most useful. Kassianne Sibley lays out a detailed plan for learning self-advocacy. It’s aimed at young people, but the principles and process she outlines can easily be adapted by autistic adults who are new to self-advocacy. I especially liked the specific examples of written self-advocacy materials that she provides. The other chapter I found informative was “Building Alliances: Community identify and the Role of Allies in Autistic Self-Advocacy” by Phil Schwarz. His concise history of other advocacy movements that the Autistic community can draw on presented a lot of material that was new to me. The remaining chapters are an odd mix of social skills instruction, IEP design and case management, none of which felt relevant to me. Of course, if you’re the parent of a student who wants to manage his/her own IEP, then that chapter would be very relevant.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not everything applied to me.