Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate: A User Guide to an Asperger Life
9.0
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Cynthia Kim explores all the quirkyness of living with Asperger Syndrome (ASD) in this accessible,...
James Koppert (2698 KP) rated Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019) in Movies
Nov 3, 2019
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
8.1
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Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of...
Atypical - Season 1
8.7
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Heartfelt comedy that follows Sam, a teenager on the autism spectrum, who has decided he is ready...
The Safe Word
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Eleanor Raven is a Vancouver police woman who is focussed on her job as a murder detective almost to...
crime thriller serial killer bdsm vancouver
Sam has Autism and doesn't always understand things well. The show really brings into life a few of the problems he may face, and how he deals with them.
Its mostly light-hearted and has a few comical characters, while still being serious at times and helping people understand what is going on.
Casey, Sams sister, understands his autism but always treats Sam as if he doesn't, in a good way. She still treats him with love and affection, but also annoys him and gets on his nerves, just as any sister would do.
The show also follows her story line, of starting in a new school and her track running. The show has some awesome characters, who show full understanding and love and care for Sam. One of the best being Sam's best friend,Zahid. Zahid is a funny and relatable, for the most part, character. He brings humour to the show in new ways, while always looking out for Sam. In ways, he shows Sam how to be 'Normal' though he's rather weird himself.
Zahid is not only Sam's best friend, but also the person he looks up to the most. The two characters have some very moving moments in the show. The show also combats toxic masculinity, with male characters seen crying, expressing feelings and hugging each other and expressing love for each other.
Overall, it is a brilliant show, that is enlightening and full of brilliant characters from all walks of life. It shows some real life problems and how a family deals with them, while taking care of each other. I would tell anyone to watch this and I imagine it would be enjoyed by all.
One of the things I noticed most was she details social rules in ways I never would have thought to do - she has a list of seven very specific rules for eye contact, for example. As an allistic person, most of those rules are things I do instinctively, without even really knowing the reason for them. Like, in conversation, looking up or to the side means you're thinking, looking down means you're done talking. I read that to my husband and he jumped in, surprised, with "so THAT'S why I get interrupted so much!" I never would have thought to codify that into words, but it's something I naturally do.
She talks about meltdowns vs shutdowns, which are things we've already learned the difference between with my husband, but we're both eager for strategies to avoid, mitigate, and recover from them. She gave some strategies as places to start, but that's hard to give general advice on as every autistic is so very different in that regard.
The chapter on alexithymia was really interesting. Alexithymia being an impairment in identifying and describing emotions. It leads to a lot of "Hey, are you okay?" "I don't know." "Well, how do you feel?" "I DON'T KNOW!" We'd already been introduced to this concept through her blog, but she expands on it in the book.
Another interesting (and applicable!) chapter was the one on executive dysfunction. (We joke that I am my husband's personal assistant - I keep his calendar and remind him of important dates/events/homework due dates, and sometimes nudge him to do things if it seems he's having trouble getting started.)
Kim uses the term Asperger's in her writing (as well as autism), but Asperger's has been rolled into the greater Autism Spectrum Disorder since 2013. Very recently there's been some debate about the Asperger name, as it's been revealed that Hans Asperger at least cooperated with the Nazis, and possibly was one himself. It's still used commonly, though, and there is a large community built around being Aspies. Personally, I think using the Asperger term is a little too divisive - it's basically the same as "high-functioning." But. I'm allistic and my opinion on the matter isn't the important one, so. We use autistic for my husband. (His choice, and when I asked his thoughts, he also thinks the Asperger term is divisive and not useful.) There's a number of Twitter threads and articles on the subject of using or not using the Asperger term, and what it means to the community.
Overall, this was a really great book for learning about how autism affects day-to-day life, and gave us lots of talking points and words for things we didn't have the vocabulary for. I'm looking forward to tackling the rest of my Autism Reading List.
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com
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