c) Tell us about a book you read in the last year that had a big impact on you, and why.
I recently read “Thinking in pictures” by Temple Grandin. This book is a successful story of how autism turned out to be an advantage for one girl, the author of the book. This book also talks about the author’s mother who set a great example to other parents of children diagnosed with autism and gives an approach that is not very common on how to deal with this condition. I purposely chose to read this book because it closely relates to my current job as Instructional Assistant lll, which embraces working with autistic and emotionally disturbed children. In the book the mother is pictured with a never give up attitude towards her daughter’s disorder. …show more content…
After Temple was examined by the specialists, her mother was told that her baby girl would most likely remain non verbal, not social with others and needed to be placed in a specialized institution. The doctors added that Temple’s illness is probably a result of lacking a mother-to-baby bonding during early child development to which the mother argued that she had other children and had always treated all of them the same. What fascinates me about Temple’s mother is that throughout her life, while appreciating help from others, she took the whole responsibility on her own shoulders and tried to be the best mother for her special child. Many times that included being a best friend, mentor, teacher, and even a psychologist for Temple. This book is very encouraging because the mother’s efforts were eventually rewarded when Temple started college like other individuals of her age. While in school and college she constantly had to deal with different names that were given by her peers and were very hurtful. For example, because of her repetitive speech, she was often called a tape recorder. Eventually Temple found out that the most efficient method for her to calm down was by receiving pressure on