Abstract

When making the transition to adulthood, young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder can find their opportunities limited by their impaired prosody. Through a program of evidence-based lessons and resources, this book helps to develop verbal and nonverbal skills essential to adult life, particularly in the context of looking for a job or social situations. It is a complete curriculum, covering everything from self-calming to fluency and conversational skills, and includes lesson plans, handouts, and homework.

The program has been successfully used by the authors in their work with people on the autism spectrum and will be a life-changing resource for professionals as well as for parents and people on the autism spectrum wanting to improve their ability to communicate well.

Dr Michelle Dunn is the Director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Autism and Communication Disorders, and Professor of Clinical Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Michelle is the author of S.O.S.: Social Skills in our Schools: A Social Skills program for children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders and their typical peers.

Larry Harris is a former NFL American Football player turned opera singer. He became a research assistant and vocal therapist at the Montefiore Einstein Center for Autism and Communication Disorders in 2012. Larry uses his experience in both sport and music to help young people understand the mechanics of their voices.

This is an absolutely wonderful and quite unique book for teaching skills in an area that is almost universal in autism: that of prosodic and related deficits. As pointed out early in the book, abnormal prosody gives 'a first impression of oddness' and interferes with ongoing social relationships. This readable, fascinating, and explicit book gives very specific lessons in all areas of what we usually include in 'prosody' (pacing, volume, pitch changes, word stressing), as well as in related pragmatic areas that are almost universally deficient in autism (conversing, narrating, gesture, eye contact, small talk, giving instructions). Lessons are spelled out in hierarchical fashion, and are detailed and explicit enough to be implemented by a variety of professionals (speech/language therapists, psychologists, teachers, behavior therapists). The authors also provide a clear and easy to use assessment tool for rating aspects of prosody, that does not require technical linguistic expertise, and which I intend to adopt for all the individuals I assess. Finally, the clinical and vocal expertise of these two authors (Dr. Dunn is a neuropsychologist specializing in autism and Mr. Harris is an opera singer) is very obvious in how they approach the whole endeavor, that is, by working first on helping the learner to be calm and reduce tension (which makes adjusting muscles easier and helps the learner to be ready to attend and learn). The intervention program in this book could change the social lives of many individuals with autism, which in turn could improve their academic attainments, vocational prospects and lifelong emotional fulfillment.
Deborah Fein, Ph.D., Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, University of Connecticut and author of ‘The Neuropsychology of Autism’ and ‘The Activity Kit for Babies and Toddlers at Risk’