Parents of Children with Autism: An Ethnography [Hardcover]

In a readable and highly accessible ethnographic account that is shaped by the stories of families and the voices of parents, De Wolfe examines how parents of children with autism navigate the educational and medical systems, understand their own and their children's bodies, and support and educate one another.1. Anthropologizing Experiences of Autism 2. Meet the Parents 3. Re-charting Territories, Redefining Roles: The Issue of Relationships 4. Peculiarities and Particularities: The Issue of Bodies 5. Navigations and Limitations: The Issue of Institutions 6. Sharing and Fighting: The Issue of Communication and Education Concluding Remarks

A poignant, informative, and deeply thought-provoking study of parents as 'autism warriors'. Unlike those who have gone before her, de Wolfe shifts our focus away from families and organizations with ample resources. She looks at working-class parents who must fight for their kids' needs in contexts framed by limited resources and a lack of specialized, day-to-day help. This is a study of grassroots organizing from the ground up, a must read not only for other parents but for professionals, family members, and neighbors as a means to learn how autism parenting is inescapably a twenty-four-seven job, one performed with perseverance, determination, and dignity. - Lesley A. Sharp, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College, USA; Senior Research Scientist in Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA

A sophisticated, sensitive, and extremely detailed and perceptive account of what it means to be an 'autism parent' in contemporary US society. De Wolfe does not parachute in and out of her informants' lives, but stays with them over the long haul and learns to view the world and their children through their eyes. Exemplary in terms of its concern for the dignity and humanity of its subjects, whose lives and struggles it depicts with great empathy.l³.