This book is about using special needs to ameliorate autistic traits. It has a lot of very useful material and pointers to many products available. Most of the first half of the book deals with definitons of autism and a brief review of several research strands. The second half deal with software and fitting needs to the UK's National Curriculum. Perhaps the most valuable, and chastening, components are the vignettes of parents' and children's experiences with special needs software. The moral of these stories is: avoid high expectations. Improvements are not guaranteed.
The meterial is presented well - a hallmark of all Fulton books it seems. Call out boxes are used to emphasise points or relate a vignette. There are a good number of diagrams and pictures. However, I remain to be convinced that most readers will grasp the 'star graphs'. These are introduced as representations of five measures of relatedness to the computer. All very interesting, but the individual graphs use a very small font in the main - too small. It may be hard for parents to see a role for them outside of a research context.
One slight irritant is that a figure number in the text occasionally references a figure that is a page or two further on. Presumably this is because the inserts are too large to accommodate at a more convenient point.
While special needs software claims to be step away from a 'one size fits all' pedagogy, there isn't any developed discussion of specifications for such systems in the text. Understandably the text bocues on available proprietary systems. It is a limitation and one that most parents will ignore - initially at any rate.
Another issue to ponder is whether improvements in behaviour and communication skills arise from use of the computer as a meduium, or simply coincide developmentally with its use? Again readers would have benefited if this point had been developed.
However, these quibbles must be set in the context of an otherwise thorough and practical book. The accounts of individual experiences are really worthwhile studying.
