This straight-talking and accessible guide for parents of teenagers on the autism spectrum provides down-to-earth advice on coping with the more difficult issues that can arise at home and school during the adolescent years. Andrew Schlegelmilch discusses common parenting challenges and offers advice drawn from his extensive experience working with teenagers with autism and their families as Head Psychologist at a college preparatory school. He offers parents professional guidance on what to do about falling grades, how to handle adolescent tantrums, how to talk about sex and sexuality with your child, how to help your child with peer relationships, how to keep your child safe online, and what to do if you suspect your child has mental health problems. Integral to the discussion is how to set realistic expectations and encourage independence in ways that work for both your child with autism and the rest of the family, as well as how to make the best use of the help professionals can offer.

Writing about traumatic or stressful experiences has been shown to have physical and mental health benefits. This book describes two studies that were designed to test the hypothesis that programmed writing would enhance the mood, health, and dance skill of students enrolled in dance education classes. Study 1 included 40 participants with a mean age of 17.1 years who were enrolled in a community-based summer dance camp. Study 2 included 100 participants with a mean age of 20.5 years who were enrolled in university-based dance education classes. Both studies utilized a pre/post design, and participants were randomly assigned to a programmed writing group or a control writing group. The programmed writing group was instructed to write about their thoughts and feelings about dance, and the control writing group was instructed to write about what they learned in class that day. Participants also completed questionnaires about their mood, health, and perceived dance skill, and were rated by independent observers on dance skill and attitude. A series of multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) examined the effects of programmed writing on mood, health and dance skill. The results of Study 1 suggested that programmed writing had a positive effect on mood, but failed to have a significant effect on health or dance skill. The results for Study 2 suggested that programmed writing did not have a significant effect on health, mood, or dance skill. These studies appear to be an appropriate application of programmed writing in an applied setting, and call into question the ability of programmed writing to effectively cause positive changes in health, mood, and goal attainment, as is typicallyreported in the literature. Ideas for future research such as linguistic analysis of participants' journals and further clarification of the role of stress and emotionality in dance are discussed.