The Survival Guide for Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder (And Their Parents) (Survival Guides for Kids)
Original price was: $19.99.$15.30Current price is: $15.30.
Help autistic kids understand their unique gifts and needs and learn strategies for daily living in a neurotypical world.
This positive, straightforward reference book offers kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) their own comprehensive resource for both understanding their condition and finding tools to cope with the challenges they face every day. Freshly updated, the content reflects changes in the understanding of ASD since the book was first released, including clarification that Asperger’s syndrome is no longer a specific diagnosis and what this means for readers. The book also features new stories of young people with autism and an added chapter, “Tech Talk.”
Some children with ASD are gifted; others struggle academically. Some are more introverted, while others want to be social. Some get “stuck” on things, have intense interests, or experience repeated motor movements like flapping or pacing (“stims”). The Survival Guide for Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder covers all of these areas, with an emphasis on helping children gain new self-understanding and self-acceptance.
Meant to be read with a parent, the book addresses questions (“What is ASD?” “Why me?”) and provides strategies for communicating, staying safe and smart online, making and keeping friends, and succeeding in school. Body and brain basics highlight symptom management, exercise, diet, hygiene, relaxation, sleep, and toileting. Emphasis is placed on helping kids handle intense emotions and behaviors and get support from family and their team of helpers when needed. The book includes stories from real kids, fact boxes, helpful checklists, and resources. Sections for parents offer additional information.
Survival Guides for Kids
Helping Kids Help Themselves®
Straightforward, friendly, and loaded with practical advice, the Free Spirit Survival Guides for Kids give kids the tools they need to not only survive, but thrive. With plenty of realistic examples and bright illustrations, they are accessible, encouraging, kid-friendly, and even life-changing.
From the brand
Kids encounter challenges everywhere—at home, in school, and in the wider world. Regardless of the choices, changes, and opportunities they face, Free Spirit has remained dedicated to equipping children and teens, along with the adults who support them, with the tools to think independently, tackle obstacles, and create a positive impact in the world.
Why Free Spirit?
For 40 years, Free Spirit has empowered children and teens with tools to think independently, overcome challenges, and create change.
Free Spirit Best Sellers
What makes our products unique?
Our books are positive, solution-oriented, and kid-friendly, meeting children of all ages—from babies to teens—right where they are and tackling the real-life challenges they encounter.
Why do we love what we do?
Our over 300 award-winning books and products have become cherished resources for parents, teachers, counselors, youth workers, and kids everywhere. Their trust in us fuels our passion and commitment to making a difference.
Flourish Together in Learning!
By working together, we can foster a learning environment that helps both teachers and students flourish.
Publisher : Free Spirit Publishing
Publication date : June 15, 2021
Edition : Second Edition, Updated
Language : English
Print length : 248 pages
ISBN-10 : 163198599X
ISBN-13 : 978-1631985997
Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
Reading age : 9 – 13 years
Dimensions : 7 x 0.5 x 9 inches
Part of series : The Survival Guide for Kids
Grade level : 4 – 8
Lexile measure : 810L
Best Sellers Rank: #35,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8 in Teen & Young Adult Nonfiction on Disabilities #43 in Teen & Young Adult Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance Issues #103 in Parenting Books on Children with Disabilities
Customer Reviews: 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 194 ratings var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
13 reviews for The Survival Guide for Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder (And Their Parents) (Survival Guides for Kids)
Add a review
Related Products
Original price was: $19.99.$15.30Current price is: $15.30.
Tiffany Poole –
Amazing informative book
Best book to understand autism. Gives real stories so you can explain to your child what’s going on too. Good to help siblings understand autism . Great for the whole family. Very informative and helpful
Cari Williams –
Doc recommended
Son diagnosed with autism. One of the books the doctor recommended
Rich Bacher –
Great book for kids, parents and grand parents
Like: very informative and helpful.
Khamy –
Great book for parents and kids!
I bought it for my son. We both really enjoyed it!
VickyLynn24 –
not what expected
I was looking for a book/curriculum to use in sessions with kids. One that would be broken down into little sections to work on focus or communication. This book on the other hand is a “do you think you have ASD?” Signs of possibly having it, what to do as a parent, and more about what autism is. It’s more for those parents that think their child may be on the spectrum or those that just got diagnosed and what to expect and more about what being on the spectrum needs.
EmilytheStrange –
Useful
I like how it encourages masking in some situations.But also if you have a kid that likes to emulate symptoms, you can end up with a lot of new things. My daughter took almost every scenario and decided to be those things. So, for example, she’s fine walking between classes but it suggested that some kids may need to leave class 5 min early to have quiet halls and now she wants that too. It’s fine. It’s little stuff but it adds up.I think it helps normalize autism for kids but also depends on your kid
Turtleneck Queen –
Only for the condition formerly known as Asperges
My child is minimally verbal but he can read and comprehend. In the first few pages, it says “most people with autism can talk”.No support for nonvebal children.
Amazon Customer –
Ableist, cruel garbage
*As a disclaimer, I only put a star in this review because it was required. This book deserves no stars* As an Autistic person, I found many problems with this book. For one, it is NOT WRITTEN BY AUTISTIC PEOPLE. There wasn’t even consultation from an Autistic person. The authors talk about ways to “survive” Autism, without even knowing what it’s like to be on the spectrum. Next, the chapters (in theory ) should have been helpful, but from reading it, they were mainly focused on how to blend into a neurotypical world, not how to accept your Autism. In the chapter about stimming, the authors only talk about hiding one’s stims, not accepting them. One quote that really disturbed me was this- “Her parents love her. But they don’t love her ASD because it makes her get ‘stuck’ on things.” This person’s parents dont like their kid’s disability because it makes act differently than neurotypicals?! It is so offending to the whole autistic community that these non autistic people had the audacity to write a book about autism with no idea how it really feels to be autistic, didn’t consult an autistic person, wrote ableist things in the book, and then took their experience as mothers and doctors who worked with autistics as an invitation to write a wholly sad, unhelpful, and hurtful book. If you are autistic, please protect your mental health and don’t support these authors and their ableist writing.
Jinder gill –
So much great information. Best book out there .
Jpc –
My eldest daughter is currently going though the stages of the Autism assessment and this book is a fantastic way of helping her understand Autism.
Lula Belle –
My 14 yr old enjoyed working through this
The Sandor –
As I sit down to write this review I find myself becoming quite angry and incredibly disheartened at the outdated and damaging views expressed in this book.I really wanted to love this book. This book means really well…but beyond ‘not quite hitting the mark’, contains ‘advice’ and language that is at best problematic, at worst traumatic and damaging to the autistic community. On first inspection, it looks and feels like a great book to read with your kid. Lots of pictures, stories, and real-life examples from kids etc… but sadly is full of ableist sentiment and language.First big trigger was the author’s decision to use ASD – Autistic Spectrum Disorder – without referencing that the autistic community frequently finds the word ‘disorder’ to have a negative connotation.Next was the decision to refer to an autistic person as ‘having’ autism, rather than being autistic. I fully accept there are strong differences of opinion surrounding this matter. My experience is that the autistic community prefers the language of ‘being autistic’ because they feel that their autism is so intrinsically a part of who they are and how they experience the world. ‘Having’ something often carries various negative implications. Autism is also absolutely not a ‘medical condition’ as stated in the book. It is a neurotype. However, my issue here is more with the fact that this incredibly important point was not discussed (even in the ‘for parents’ section to raise awareness) it was simply stated in the book as ‘we’ve used language we prefer’.So, as I said, I did actually want to love this book. After I started to notice some problematic language, I thought ‘I’ll just go through it with a sharpie and block out anything problematic’, but the further I went through the book, the more problems came up for me.There is a lot of ‘as someone with ASD, you’re probably this type of person / probably feel like this’. A lot of massive over-generalizations. But more problematic there is SO MUCH telling people how to parent their kids instead of LISTENING to their kids, learning who they are and what they need by ways of support. EG ‘Like other kids you probably don’t enjoy doing chores, maybe you really hate doing chores….The key here is practice!’. NO! The key here is responding to your child’s individual needs and challenges. Maybe ‘practicing’ putting out the garbage is in actual fact inflicting repeated trauma on a child who struggles to deal with a massive sensitivity to smell? / ‘The reason people play games is to have fun! So don’t worry so much about winning’. Again, NO! There are SO MANY reasons to play a game. Social interaction, motor skills, creative thinking etc etc and how about instead of advising a child to worry less about winning and dismissing their human nature to succeed, we teach them to manage their disappointment appropriately? / ‘Don’t use electronics in the morning while getting ready for school…screens add more distraction’. This is SO presumptuous. Every child will have their own unique profile of needs and challenges. Distracting a stuck PDA brain with a screen can allow someone to get out of bed, or get dressed, or allow an autistic with food challenges to eat something. A screen can allow a distraction, a moment of focus, a moment of peace, it can be an incredible tool in an autistic child’s tool box.There are countless examples of shaming autistic traits and behaviors in this book. ‘At home, your family probably has a hard time handling your meltdowns…Often they’re the ones who have to clean up if you’ve damaged stuff in anger’ (Because guilt-tripping a child who is already struggling to remain regulated is sure to help…right?) / ‘To work on these behaviors (stims), here are some ideas to try: Keep them private / Try a different behavior/work on relaxation techniques’. So in other words ‘hide your autistic self and try to appear more neuronormative’. How about instead, educating the teacher who finds them ‘distracting’, educating the classmates who find them uncomfortable, and encouraging the autistic child to develop their tool kit of self-regulation in a way that works for them?This book is not without merit. There are indeed useful passages helping autistic kids understand their autism the world and their place in it, but it is so steeped in patronizing, shaming, and ableist viewpoints and perspectives that it will inflict significantly more harm than good. Rather than empowering your autistic child, this book will only serve to provide them with a litany of all the ways in which they are ‘getting it wrong’ and the ways in which they ‘could’ and ‘should’ do ‘better’. (be more neuronormative).Instead, research autistic authors who have lived experience of being a neurodivergent person in a neuronormative world.
Amazon Customer –
Great book. Good for kids.