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The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late by Thomas Sowell
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Thomas Sowell Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2002-12 ISBN: 046508141X Number of pages: 256 Publisher: Basic Books Product features: - ISBN13: 9780465081417
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk LateBook Review: Most crucial book I ever read Summary: 5 Stars
Finding out about and reading this book made an incredible difference to our family, and if Dr. Thomas Sowell or a relative/friend of his is reading this review: thank you from the bottom of my heart. Two-and-a-half years ago, at age 2 1/2, my son was definitely going through some kind of developmental slump that included very limited speech. Our assigned speech therapist, though not empowered to diagnose here in Canada, suggested when I probed her that my son was between moderately and severely autistic. Her report, contrary to our expressed wishes, went straight to the developmental pediatrician we took our son to a month later. He confirmed by phone after the appointment that our son was definitely on the autistic spectrum and that a written report would follow in a few weeks. Having read Sowell's book earlier I held out some hope that our son was being misdiagnosed. However, his behavior was at its most erratic and disturbing at that point so for about a dozen days I caved in to despair and these indeed were the worst dozen days of my life. But something Dr. Sowell emphasized in his book kept nagging at me: namely, that diagnosing autism-spectrum disorders is the thing that speech therapists do least well. And, we had the distinct impression that our developmental pediatrician was leaning quite heavily on the speech therapists's report--which we had thought was so extreme that we tried (unsuccessfully) to block it. Despite the gloom, day by day I began to think that the apparent autistic symptoms were displaying themselves fairly infrequently and only partially. So I contacted the two clinicians at the University of Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee whom Sowell recommends for second opinions: Dr. Stephen Camarata (a Ph.D in speech therapy) and his wife Mary Camarata. They responded immediately and sympathetically (by e-mail), a cancellation a few weeks later allowed us to book an appointment, and off the whole family flew from Toronto to Nashville. The Camaratas were brilliant, and FAR better at dealing with our son in an interview situation than the Toronto people had been. They determined within 15 minutes that our son was not only NOT on the autistic spectrum, but not even close to being on it. They suggested that he might have a language disorder that might need some extra help in overcoming, but that was it. Our son subsequently did two years of pre-school at a place that specializes in A-spectrum and language-delay kids, mixed with no-issues kids as well. He did fine, with very little speech therapy, and is talking like a magpie these days. He is now in a public school junior kindergarten and doing great. I tend to think that he's just normal, though quite bright and a real character, rather than an Einstein syndrome kid. However, had it not been for Sowell's book directing us to the Camaratas, we likely would have got caught up in the whole A-spectrum disorder bureaucracy here, and worse, we would have subjected our son to an incredibly expensive and needless behavioural intervention therapy that we had even arranged to begin the very day we instead had our son re-evaluated in Nashville. Put it this way: the best decision I have ever made in my life (I'm 55) was to read Sowell's book and follow his suggestion that a re-evaluation by the Camaratas might be in order. It's been a very happy ending for our son and us, but absent 'The Einstein Syndrome' it would likely have been VERY heavy going.
Postscript three years later: son in grade 2, doing very well, now above-average (for a boy) speech-wise and well-above average for reading. Orange belt in karate. Has a best friend. Gets along great with big sister, except for the occasional scream-fest. Has done lots of foreign travel, with a minimal number of 'scenes' in airplanes and restaurants. I would think his psychological profile is now the opposite of autistic in every respect. Very affectionate (punctuated with explosive outburts soon over and apologized for). Very funny. The autism mis-diagnosis of 2005 seems like a vaguely remembered bad dream in the distant past, though he has experienced very quirky uneven development dotted with quasi-autistic symptoms along the way. Number of worrisome symptoms now: zero.
Summary of The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk LateThe Einstein Syndrome is a follow-up to Late-Talking Children, which established Thomas Sowell as a leading spokesman on the subject. While many children who talk late suffer from developmental disorders or autism, there is a certain well-defined group who are developmentally normal or even quite bright, yet who may go past their fourth birthday before beginning to talk. These children are often misdiagnosed as autistic or retarded, a mistake that is doubly hard on parents who must first worry about their apparently handicapped children and then must see them lumped into special classes and therapy groups where all the other children are clearly very different.Since he first became involved in this issue in the mid-1990s, Sowell has joined with Stephen Camarata of Vanderbilt University, who has conducted a much broader, more rigorous study of this phenomenon than the anecdotes reported in Late-Talking Children. Sowell can now identify a particular syndrome, a cluster of common symptoms and family characteristics, that differentiates these late-talking children from others; relate this syndrome to other syndromes; speculate about its causes; and describe how children with this syndrome are likely to develop.
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