Books for Children with Autism: No! Don’t read, Mommy!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Around the time we received the diagnosis

of PDD-NOS for my son (aged two),

I sat down to read

But Not the Hippopotamus

with him, and he said "no!"

and moved away from me.

I cannot recall whether this happened

before or after the diagnosis although I think he said “no!”

reading after we started to notice regression (18 months).

My mother and husband don’t recall the incident at all.

Odd, because my mother told me what to do.

“Stop saying you’re reading to him,”

she advised,

“say: ‘Mommy reads to mommy’ and read out loud to yourself.”

I did, and my blessedly curious curly haired tot

soon cuddled up close to me again for book time.

He still would not look at But Not the Hippopotamus,

(perhaps we read that too much too early?)

but The Going to Bed Book and Good Night Moon

came back into our lives.

The Rosemary Wells illustrated Nursery rhyme

board books also pleased him mightily.

Do any readers have children with autism who love rhymes?

The predictability of rhymes make them so appealing to an

orderly mind set - a natural fit for children (with or

without a diagnosis) who like patterns and

predictability.

Just as threatened in my previous post, I’ve signed up with

Amazon. Alas, I do not think I will get much filthy lucre by

my crass commercialism, but my main goal is to get

good book pictures for the site. We’ll see how that works out.

Supposedly, there's also a way to post a link that

lets you buy the book.

Full disclosure: If you click thru and buy the featured book,

they do credit me with some %, I think 4%, for

the sale. I’m not being cagey here, Amazon doesn’t list

what % you get for a book! So if I ever figure

out how to add the link and if that 4% ever equals

$10 and if I ever figure out how to fill out the payment

form . . . You get the picture. At least the one at the

Books for Children with Autism