An Autism Casebook for Parents and Practitioners The Child Behind the Symptoms

Drawing from the author?s extensive clinical experience, this autism casebook offers stimulating reflections and a fresh perspective on how we assess, diagnose, and ultimately treat young children thought to be autistic.

Challenging what she perceives as the rampant over-diagnosis and misdiagnosis of autism, and the commonly accepted status of autism as an unchangeable trait, Dr. Levin Fox illustrates how the developmental play strategies of DIRFloortime, combined with the creative psychological perspective of Reuven Feuerstein, create an effective way of identifying the child's strengths behind the autistic symptoms. The chapters are an accessible mix of clinical insights, theoretical reflections and vivid case stories that argue and illustrate that qualitative assessment methods based on play have the power to yield a more accurate clinical understanding of a child's difficulties?and strengths?than conventional symptom-focused autism assessment methods.

This engaging casebook will stimulate practitioners, educators and students in the field of autism to question commonly held assumptions when assessing and treating autistic children, as it both urges and illustrates more reflective practice. Parents of children considered autistic will find renewed encouragement and hope in these enlightening case stories.

Acknowledgments; Foreword; Introduction: A Call from the Trenches; PART ONE CHILDREN; Chapter 1. Jack: Misdiagnosis and the Burden of Doubt; Chapter 2. Sasha: The Specter of Early Diagnosis; Chapter 3. Annie: Emergence from the Shadows; Chapter 4. Davie: A Longer Journey; Chapter 5. Joe: Was it Too Late?; Chapter 6. Mikey: Talk to Your Child; Chapter 7. Max: The Impact of Oral Dyspraxia; Chapter 8. Josh: Developmental Drama; PART TWO THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS; Chapter 9. Feuerstein's Vision and Vocabulary; Chapter 10. Searching for Islets of Normalcy; Chapter 11. DIRFloortime Basics; Chapter 12. Islets of Normalcy Revisited; Chapter 13. The DSM on Autism: A Closer Look; Chapter 14. Autistiform but Not Autistic; Chapter 15. Toward a Paradigm Shift; Chapter 16. Concluding Reflections; APPENDIX I; APPENDIX II; APPENDIX III; Index

Shoshana Levin Fox, EdD, is a child psychologist specializing in play therapy. Since completing doctoral studies in Canada, she has worked in Jerusalem, where she lives with her husband.