Winnie White, an elementary special-education teacher and mother of two autistic children, recommends books that shaped her understanding of autism over 20 years. She covers personal narratives, neurodiverse perspectives, parenting strategies, and communication methods, explaining why each matters for parents and teachers.
Have you read a good book lately? Well, let's talk about that. My name is Winnie White, and I currently teach in an elementary self-contained classroom, but more importantly, I am actually a mom of two individuals with an autism diagnosis. My son is now 20 years old. He was first diagnosed when he was 3 years old with autism, and he is low support needs, and he is even in college right now studying theater arts. My daughter is 10 years old and she has high support needs and she's actually in my classroom. You may have seen her on some of the other videos that I have done, but she is non-speaking and she uses an AAC device and it has just opened the world of autism up to me here in the classroom and as well in the home. Books have been a lifeline during these past 20 years that I have walked this autism journey. And as a mom, first of all, I was just hungry for any information that I could get. And then as a teacher, once I added special education onto my certification in order to be able to teach, um, special ed when my son was first diagnosed, I had to learn a whole new world. Well, some of these books that I'm going to share with you today have been very important to shaping my understanding of on the autism spectrum. So let's talk about those books. You can use them for yourself professionally, but even more importantly, as you have parents that join you on this journey, these are some books that you may can recommend to them that have helped to shape my understanding as a mom and also my understanding as a teacher.
This is a brand new book just off the presses, Autism Out Loud. It's written by 3 autism moms, Kate Swinson, Carrie Cariello, and Adrienne Wood. You may have heard of Kate Swinson. She has the page Finding Cooper's Voice on Facebook. I follow her. Also, Carrie Cariello has her own Facebook page about her son who is an older individual with autism. And then Adrienne Wood is Tales of an Educated Debutante. She talks about her son who is about 10 or 11 years old. But all 3 of them have very active Facebook page and groups, and they have just produced this book Autism Out Loud together. I purchased it on Audible because I love listening to books. This one I read a little while ago. It's Forever Boy. It's by Kate Swinson. She's also one of the authors of Autism Out Loud. She talks about her journey of learning that her son was autistic. He is actually nonverbal too, and she talks about the diagnosis process, all that she went through to get the diagnosis, and then all the different stages of, of learning how to live life with someone with autism, level 3 autism. I love Temple Grandin. Um, Dr. Grandin has written several books on autism, The Autistic Brain. She's also written the book Navigating Autism with Deborah Moore. And I actually did a book study on Navigating Autism with some other teachers who are in special education. We took it once a week. We met to and did a chapter together, read it, um, Wonderful book for really helping, especially a parent who might be new to the autism diagnosis. This book was fantastic. I absolutely loved it, by Dr. Barry Prizant. He goes through decades of anecdotal records of some of different individuals that he worked with and the things that he learned. I highly recommend Uniquely Human. He also has a podcast that I follow. When I first got the diagnosis for my daughter, who is now 10, someone recommended this book, Positive Parenting for Autism. We are in a very rural area and we did not have any ABA therapy opportunities, so they, they said that this book was very good for understanding ABA techniques and being able to use in your own home. Just, it's good parenting strategies. I just finished this book, The Explosive Child. It talks about different— by Dr. Ross Greene, very easy to read. I actually got it on Audible as well. I loved listening to it. He talks about different strategies for helping a child when they are frustrated or upset not to explode. So definitely a fantastic book that I recommend for parents and also for teachers. Teachers. This one is my favorite book to recommend for teachers, but you know, a lot of parents are very interested in learning about how to teach their child how to read and write as well. This is Comprehensive Literacy for All. It's written by Dr. Karen Erickson and Dr. David Copenhaver. If you've listened to any of my other videos that I have put out, I talk about them often. They are the main reason that I do shared reading and read-alouds and guided reading and interactive writing, and they go through that whole framework for a balanced literacy approach. When my daughter started using an AAC device in the classroom, I found this book very interesting, AAC in the Schools, definitely for teachers. I just finished this book a little while ago. It's written by Jesse Ginsberg, and she is a speech therapist. She talks about using a sensory-based approach to teaching communication for autistic children, and my daughter is very sensory driven, so this helped me as a parent but also as a teacher. And this is the last one for my recommendation. It's Underestimated. It's written by J.B. Handley and Jameson Handley. Jameson is his son, and it uses— it talks about the Spelling to Communicate, which is very controversial, but for me in the classroom, it really helped me understand the value of literacy and spelling and helping me with my decisions for what I do next with my daughter who uses an AAC device.
So those are just a few examples of some of the books that I've read over these past, um, 20 years, but I want to encourage you to figure out which way do you enjoy reading the most. Do you like to see the book in print? Do you like to touch the pages and highlight and put sticky notes in it? Do you like to listen to books? That's me. I love listening to books. So I'm going to choose an Audible book whenever it's op— whenever it's available. Or if it's more complex, like for example Comprehensive Literacy for All, I wanted to see it and I wanted to hear it, so I got it on Kindle. So check out one of these books today and get started. Reading one book a month or one book a quarter, it can really help improve your connection with autism.
