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The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
From Their Point of View
Getting Inside the Head of a Child with Autism By Jenn Director Knudsen
Children's author Beverly Cleary inserted herself in the mind of a 5-year-old kindergartner in Ramona the Pest; Cleary had a knack for "speaking for" the young girl. Award-winning author and columnist Ellen Notbohm has that same knack with a growing group of children who have a harder time communicating than the fictional Ramona Quimby ever did. Notbohm strives to help parents and educators get into the heads of children and students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and Asperger's Syndrome.
As Notbohm writes in the preface to Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew (Future Horizons, 2005), which won the iParenting Media Award and an Honorable Mention in the prestigious 2005 ForeWord Book of the Year Awards, "I had seen several articles that took related approaches: ten things teachers want parents to know, or what mothers wish their children's teachers knew, what ASD dads need to know. I asked myself, who speaks for the child?"
A mother of two sons, the youngest of whom was identified 11 years ago at age 3 as a child with autism, Notbohm decided she could. (Though she says she "is humbled" by the comparison to Cleary). "Children with language disorders cannot speak for themselves," Notbohm says in a recent phone interview from her home in Portland, Ore. "So I tried to 'speak for' them."
Notbohm's follow-up book, Ten Things Your Student With Autism Wishes You Knew (Future Horizons, 2006) ) has also won the iParenting Media Award.