Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Survival Guide

Rusty sent me this link (by way of Metafilter, I believe) the other day. It's the full text of a book, entitled Coping: A Survival Guide for People with Asperger Syndrome.

The book's author,
Marc Segar, was killed in a car accident almost ten years ago, but someone close to him decided to make his book widely available. Many passages, such as this one, from the chapter "Distorting the Truth", are unaffectedly -- and I'd imagine unintentionally -- poignant:
Sarcasm is when someone says one things but means the opposite. For example - in response to hearing someone burp, someone else might say 'how polite'. The easiest way of picking up on sarcasm is by listening to the tone of voice. You may need to defend yourself against sarcasm at times and this will be covered in the following chapters.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You will love this:

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/06/26/the-library-bathtub/

Anonymous said...

I desperately wish I had read this book at about age sixteen, when I was failing miserably to understand and befriend a schoolmate who most likely suffered from Asperger's, something I had never heard of at that age. As a non-autistic person, reading his simple and direct explanations of the social cues helped me comprehend the enormous potential gap between how I perceived reality and how she did. Also eye-opening was the amount of essential deceit--benign or malign, intentional or unconscious--we all tend to employ in everyday conversation and interaction. Nifty book!

Carol Elaine said...

Thank you for this link. My boyfriend's teenage daughter has Asperger's and I think this might be helpful, if they don't already have the book.

Rebecca Einstein Schorr said...

Thank you for posting this. Our 7 year old son has AS and I find that the more I read and chat with people, the more equipped I become to be the best parent for him.