– Customer review on 29/05/2011

This is a detailed look at a difficult subject but for the parent of a child with autism it is one of those stones that should not go unturned. Dr. Greenspan makes the extraordinary claim that he has treated thousands of children and adults with ASD and has never seen one that could not be moved forward on the spectrum, not even one. In many cases they have been be able to join their peers in full healthy emotional and intellectual lives.

Dr. Greenspan is no quack. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School. He and Dr. Serena Wieder have spent the last twenty five years developing the approach they call Floortime. Their thesis is that all learning begins with emotion. The tiniest infant typically bonds and begins to communicate with its mother because it finds that communication pleasurable and desirable. Each little step in the process represents a foundational building block required for the next step. Children with autism have missed some of those building blocks. The idea behind Floortime is to meet the child wherever she is emotionally. Find what the child likes to do. Join her in the activity. Follow her lead and establish an emotional bond that can be used to communicate in a way the child finds pleasurable. That in turn can allow her to put some of the missing foundation in place. Over time the child moves up on the spectrum.

– Customer review on 12/01/2010

This is a great book that helps show you how to put the fun back into engaging your autistic child. It seems to combine lots of methods that work. It also gives hope that things will and do get better with effort and work. Definitely a good book on autism.