A Perfect World by David Cohen

This book spotlight is on a New Zealand published book looking at parenting a child with autism.

A Perfect World : A Father’s Quest to Unriddle the Mysteries of Autism by David Cohen

Description: When David Cohen’s 3-year-old son, Eliot, is diagnosed as autistic, he has no idea what the condition is or what it means. He sets out on a global quest, taking in Europe, the Far East, North America and New Zealand, in order to learn more about the incurable neurological malady, which in Britain and the United States is estimated to afflict as many as one in every 150 children. (In New Zealand Autism New Zealand estimates that up to 20,000 New Zealanders are directly affected by autism). He meets some of the world’s leading autism researchers, clinicians, epidemiologists and educators along with other parents grappling with the same bewildering condition, including a mother who was driven to kill her autistic daughter. He pieces together the life of Leo Kanner, the scholar who first described autism in 1943. He meditates on what makes a good life, the nature of communication and the meaning of fatherhood and sonship.

A Perfect World is a unique international survey, drawing on scores of lengthy interviews conducted over four years, as well as being a moving family memoir. It offers new insights on the diagnosis of autism, intervention therapy, research and special-needs learning. It is a story that will appeal to parents, teachers, community workers, health specialists and fans of travel writing alike. Published 2007 by Random House.

BookieMonster says: As well as exploring the world of autism in general, there is a lot in this book dealing with the uniquely New Zealand circumstances of parenting a child with autism – the lack of support, particularly financial, from the New Zealand government and medical establishment.

Click here to purchase A Perfect World by David Cohen from BookieMonster on Trade Me.