Read A Thorn in My Pocket: Temple Grandin's Mother Tells the Family Story Online
Authors: Eustacia Cutler
I think with gratitude of therapists Rebecca Klaw at Pressley Ridge School, Pittsburgh, PA; Barbara Hanft of Silver Spring, MD, Nancy Reiser of Salt Lake City, UT, and Laura Schreibman of San Diego, CA.
A special thanks to Clara Claiborne Park, author of
The Seige
and
Exiting Nirvana
for her insight, and to Joyce Douglas for helping me to negotiate Pittsburgh’s agencies.
Bibliography
Nonfiction
Thomas Cahill,
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe
. Doubleday, NY, 1995.
First vol. Of Cahill’s series,
The Hinges of History.
Recounts how the Irish monks preserved Greek and early Christian manuscripts after the fall of Rome. Conveys the constantly shifting flow of the human thought. If you read nothing else, read the pages on “shape shifting.”
Frank Close,
Lucifer’s Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry
. Oxford University Press, NY, 2000.
Probes the lopsidedness of all life. Helpful in understanding the sidedness of autism.
Antonio R. Damasio,
Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
. Avon Books, Inc., NYC, 1994.
Antonio R. Damasio,
The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.
Harcourt Brace, 1999.
Both Damasio books explore the neurological links between emotion and thought.
The Editors of
Scientific American Magazine
, “Introduction” by Antonio R. Damasio,
The Scientific American Book on the Brain, The Best Writing on Consciousness, I.Q. and Intelligence, Perception, Disorders of the Mind.
The Lyon Press, 1999.
Contains an article on autism by Uta Frith.
Loren Eiseley,
The Immense Journey: an imaginative naturalist explores the mysteries of man and nature
. Vintage, 1946.
The slow, miraculous evolution of human sensibility.
Stephen Eliot,
Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years of Bruno Bettelheim’s Orthogenic School
. St. Martin’s Press, 2002.
Author with autism makes Bettelheim seem a little less of a monster; nevertheless, still a monster.
Erik H. Erikson,
Childhood and Society
, Norton, 1950.
Erik H. Erikson,
Insight and Responsibility: Lectures on the Ethical Implication of Psychoanalytic Insight.
Norton, 1964.
Erikson coined the word “identity,” defining it as both the product and the determinant of society.
Barry Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. and Lisa Berger,
Intelligent Memory: *Increase productivity* Solve everyday problems faster* Learn to be more creative
. Viking, 2003.
Dr. Gordon forces you to take note of your mental process. A great read for you and that smart Asperger’s child.
Temple Grandin and Margaret M. Scariano,
Emergence: Labeled Autistic
. Warner Books, 1986.
Temple Grandin,
Thinking in Pictures: and other reports from my life with Autism
. Vintage, NY, 1995.
Both books are tops on insight into the autistic mind.
Jerome Groopman, M.D.,
The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness.
Random House, NY, 2004.
Writing of the age-old battle with illness and pain, Dr. Groopman includes his own experience.
Beth Kephart,
A Slant of Sun: One Child’s Courage
, Norton, NY 1998.
A touching story of a mother of an autistic child.
Clara Claiborne Park,
The Seige: A Family’s Journey into the World of an Autistic Child,
Little Brown, Boston, 1967.
Clara Claiborne Park,
Exciting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism
, Foreword by Oliver Sacks, Little Brown, 2001.
Two meticulously recorded stories of raising a daughter with autism. You won’t forget either one.
Candace B. Pert, Ph.D.,
Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel
, Foreword by Deepak Chopra, M.D., Scribner, 1997.
Covering some of the same ground as Damasio, Pert also tells her own life journey. Immensely readable.
Richard Pollack,
The Creation of Dr.B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim
, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1997.
Read it!
Dawn Prince-Highes, editor,
Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students with Autism
. Ohio University Press, Ohio, 2002.
Five absorbing stories edited by Prince-Hughes, who also has autism.
V.S. Ramachandran. M.D, Ph.D. and Sandra Blakeslee, Forward by Oliver Sacks,
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
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Think you’re constant and consistent? Think again.
Richard Restak, M.D.,
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Joseph Henry Press, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Based on the public television program on the brain.
Matt Ridley,
Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience & What Makes Us Human
, Harper Collins, NY, 2003.
Our genes are not merely “the implacable little determinists” we thought they were, but “the mechanism for experience”.
Oliver Sacks,
An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales
, Vintage Books, Random House, NY, 1995.
Sacks’ tales include his account of Temple Grandin.
C.P. Snow,
The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution,
Cambridge University Press, NY, 1961.
Snow’s book, impacted the sixties.
Plays and Fiction
T.S. Eliot,
The Family Reunion: A Verse Play with a Contemporary Setting
, Harcourt Brace, NY, copyright 1939
The play that determined my life.
Michael Frayn,
Copenhagen: Methuen Drama
, UK, 1998
“The Whole possibility of saying or thinking anything about the world, even the most apparently objective, abstract aspect of it studied by the natural sciences, depends upon human observation, and is subject to the limitations which the human mind imposes, this uncertainty in our thinking is also fundamental to the nature of the world.” Excerpted from Frayn’s “postscript” to his play.
Mark Haddon,
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
. Vintage Contemporaries, 2004.
Fifteen-year-old boy with autism sets out to unravel the mysterious death of his neighbor’s poodle. Enchanting page-turner.
Henry James,
The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction.
Bantom Books, 1981. Copyright Scribner, 1908
Still the best ghost story ever written.
Archibald MacLeish,
Herakles, a play in verse
. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1964
The hubris of power seen through the ancient Greek myth.
Bram Stoker,
Dracula
, Penguin, 1994. First published, 1897
Richard Wilbur,
The Misanthrope and Tartuffe: Moière Translated into English Verse by Wilbur
, Harcourt Brace, first copyright, 1954.
“Here is a new master of translation’s difficult art.”
The
New Yorker
A Few Organization References
Autism Research Institute, 4182 Adams Avenue, San Diego, CA 92116. Bernard Rimland, Ph.D., Director.
Autism Research Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Webster Hall, Suite 300, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Nancy Minshaw, M.D., Director.
Autism Services Center, P.O. Box 507, Huntington, WV 25710-0507. Phone: (304) 525-8014 Fax: (304) 525-8026. Ruth Christ Sullivan, Ph.D., Director.
Provides life-long, comprehensive, community based services to individuals with developmental disabilities. Specializing in autism.
FHautism.com, 720 W. Abram St., Arlington, TX 76013. Phone: (800) 489-0727. R. Wayne Gilpin, President.
The world leader in publications and conferences on autism and Asperger’s.
Seaver & New York Autism Center of Excellence, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NYC. Eric Hollander, M.D. Director.
New insights in the diagnosis, neurobiology, genetics, and treatment of autism.
TEACCH, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. NC., Gary Mesibov Ph.D., Director.
Treatment and education of autistic and related communication-handicapped children. Also an international, interdisciplinary center for research, service, and training.
University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorder Center, (UMACC). 111 East Catherine Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Catherine Lord, Ph.D., Director.
The Watson Institute, Sewickley, PA. Marilyn Hoyson, Ph.D., Director.
Educational organization specializing in the education of children with special needs; also in the education of the professionals and pre-professionals who serve them. Watson’s web site, an interactive service, will answer questions addressed to: www.thewatsoninstitute.org.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: And Baby Makes Three
Chapter 2: As the Twig Is Bent
Chapter 4: The Separate Worlds Begin
Chapter 6: And Start All Over Again
Chapter 7: The End of Childhood
Chapter 8: Then What Happened?
Chapter 9: Looking for the Source
Chapter 10: The Legacy of Genes