Coaching People with Asperger's Syndrome

This book arises from a lifetime's practical experience of work with people with Asperger's syndrome and autism. People with Asperger's syndrome easily drop through the net and fall into the wrong services - sometimes staying at home, depending on their families, sometimes falling into criminal justice or mental health services. Others, of course, fall into employment. Those in between, and there are many, benefit from the coaching approach developed by Bill Goodyear, which is described in this book.The book is crammed with practical tips, real life stories and new thinking. So often research results arrive from highly specialised work - this book attempts to synthesise a range of new learning from a number of fields and present a hopeful view of the condition - there are many entry points to use to create the possibility of forward motion and development.Touching lightly on some specific and recurring problems, the book unpicks our current understanding of the condition and describes in detail how to use coaching to empower and enable rather than to control and direct. Teachers, parents and other professionals working with this population will find the book useful and interesting (and amusing!), as will people with Asperger's and those people who come into contact with the undiagnosed or unnoticed "Aspies" - health, education and social service professionals especially, but also coaches, therapists and complementary health practitioners.