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Autism: Nightmare Without End, by Dorothy Johnson Beavers. Ashley Books, Inc., 1983, 323 pp., $15.95.
Dr. Beavers has written a moving story of the heartbreak and stress experienced by a family with an autistic child - her own. It is disturbing that the stress need not have been as severe.
The book is a treatment to the need for completely evaluating children who are experiencing developmental delays. It is also an indictment of a system that is not responsive and often insensitive to the needs of patients and their families.
The early chapters describe Dr Beavers' gradual recognition that her son's development was delayed and her efforts to obtain professional assistance. She shares with the reader the internal struggle a parent experiences while coming to the reality that a child is developmentally disabled. Like Kubler-Ross, she describes five stages of coping with this reality; 1) disbelief, 2) resentment, 3) realization, 4) depression, and 5) acceptance coupled with hope.
After a change in pediatricians, they...