July Books 22) How to Make School Make Sense, by Clare Lawrence

This book is a very good set of explanations and ideas for helping one's child with Asperger's cope with the school environment: how to work the system as far as it is possible. Much of it seemed to me like plain common sense, but I realise that comes from years of dealing with our own situation, and also must concede that I don't recall seeing any of it written down anywhere previously. One very important point that Lawrence makes is that experience with and knowledge of Asperger's will dwindle as you go up the school hierarchy - the part-time teaching assistant assigned to the class may well know more than the class teacher, who in turn will probably know more than the principal. Although she is writing for a British audience I think most of what she says applies here too (though I'm pretty sure our services are better in general). I do regret, however, that she chose to use masculine pronouns for the Asperger's children and feminine pronouns for the teachers and other educators; it's a bit odd that a book trying to fight stereotypes in one area reinforces them in another.