Autism Goes to School by Dr. Sharon A. Mitchell

Source: Adult, Realistic Fiction
Genre: I purchased a copy

As a teacher I have taught students with varying levels of autism. Most of them were higher functioning. I have not been trained to work with them. However, I have had a couple of parents, and even the students themselves that have helped me understand people with autism a little bit more. This helped when my own grandson was diagnosed with autism. When my daughter would call me frustrated with her son’s meltdowns I thought I recognized the signs so I checked with another parent who told me to have her son tested. He is very high functioning. However, I now know things not to do and how to help him. So let’s get to the book.

This book is fiction. We have Ben a man who learned just three years before that he had a son and that he had autism. Jump forward to present time. Ben receives a call from his son’s mom. She can’t deal with their son Kyle. She is pregnant and engaged; she is dropping Kyle off to live with him. Knowing nothing about autism, Ben does everything wrong. He was under the impression that the therapy he had been paying for over the last three years would cure his son. On the first day of taking his son to school he witnesses the class his son will be put in. He berates the teacher for her methods only to learn that is the class his son will be placed in. Ben truly wants what is best for his son, as does Kyle’s teacher.

I loved that autism was  treated accurately in this book. We saw children of varying levels. We saw what happens to parents who hold their children back out of fear of the world hurting them. I found that this is the first book in a series. I most definitely will get the others to read.