This book explores how women make meaning at various health flashpoints in their lives, overcoming fear, anxiety, and anger to draw upon self-advocacy, research, and crucial decision-making. Combining focus group research, content analysis, autoethnography, and textual inquiry, the book argues that the making and remaking of what we call “patient epistemologies” is a continual process wherein a health flashpoint–sometimes a new diagnosis, sometimes a reoccurrence or worsening of an existing condition or the progression of a natural process–can cause an individual to be thrust into a discourse community that was not of their own choosing. This study will interest students and scholars of health communication, rhetoric of health and medicine, women’s studies, public health, healthcare policy, philosophy of medicine, medical sociology and medical humanities.

Women's Health Advocacy brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to effect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful. It explicates the concept of rhetorical ingenuity-the creation of rhetorical means for specific and technical, yet extremely personal, situations. At a time when women's health concerns are at the center of national debate, this rhetorical ingenuity provides means for women to uncover latent sources of oppression in women's health and medicine and to influence matters of research, funding, policy, and everyday access to healthcare in the face of exclusion and disenfranchisement. This accessible collection will be inspiring reading for academics and students in health communication, medical humanities, and women's studies, as well as for activists, patients, and professionals.

Women's Health Advocacy brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to effect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful. It explicates the concept of rhetorical ingenuity-the creation of rhetorical means for specific and technical, yet extremely personal, situations. At a time when women's health concerns are at the center of national debate, this rhetorical ingenuity provides means for women to uncover latent sources of oppression in women's health and medicine and to influence matters of research, funding, policy, and everyday access to healthcare in the face of exclusion and disenfranchisement. This accessible collection will be inspiring reading for academics and students in health communication, medical humanities, and women's studies, as well as for activists, patients, and professionals.

For thousands of loving and concerned parents of autistic children, the suspicion that something may be wrong comes long before the clinical diagnosis of autism, PDD (pervasive developmental disorder), or Asperger's syndrome. When rounds of testing and consultations confirm parents' worst fears, their emotional turmoil is matched by an overriding practical concern: What do we do next? The World of the Autistic Child is by far the most complete and comprehensive book ever written for the parents of autistic children, and for the teachers, child specialists, and other professionals that care for them. Written by Dr. Bryna Siegel, a developmental psychologist and director of a large university clinic for autistic children, it provides help and hope not only for the children, but for their families--the parents, grandparents, siblings, and other caregivers who must come to grips with their own grief and confusion following a diagnosis of autism or other related disorder. Dr. Siegel believes that parents' best defense is to acquire, as early as possible, the knowledge and the parenting skills they will need to work with professionals to help their child fulfill his or her potential. This book, therefore, is about understanding the diagnosis of autism, the available treatments, and how to decide what is best for a particular child with autism or PDD. Straightforward and sympathetic, Dr. Siegel guides readers through the thicket of symptoms and labels, explaining the crucial importance of intensive early education, and how to find the resources and help that are available. Behavior modification, the development of daily living skills, guidelines for selecting and designing schooling, mainstreaming, the role for traditional academics in educating higher functioning children and young people, building effective parent-teacher relationships, psychoactive medications, and dealing with the possibility of residential placement are all covered. Dr. Siegel teaches parents and professionals to use their own common sense and personal observations in evaluating the many highly publicized but unorthodox and often untested treatments for autism, including the much-touted facilitated communication (F/C), holding therapy, auditory training, "Options" therapy, allergy treatments, and special diets. Pulling together a wealth of long-needed information on the latest educational and medical advances, The World of the Autistic Child is a superb guide and resource that no one who cares about autistic or developmentally disabled young people will want to be without.

Bryna Siegel gives parents of autistic children what they need most: hope. Her first book, The World of the Autistic Child, became an instant classic, illuminating the inaccessible minds of afflicted children. Now she offers an equally insightful, thoroughly practical guide to treating the learning disabilities associated with this heartbreaking disorder.
The trouble with treating autism, Siegel writes, is that it is a spectrum disorder--a combination of a number of symptoms and causes. To one extent or another, it robs the child of social bonds, language, and intimacy--but the extent varies dramatically in each case. The key is to understand each case of autism as a discrete set of learning disabilities, each of which must be treated individually. Siegel explains how to take an inventory of a child's particular disabilities, breaks down the various kinds unique to autism, discusses our current knowledge about each, and reviews the existing strategies for treating them. There is no simple cure for this multifarious disorder, she writes; instead, an individual program, with a unique array of specific treatments, must be constructed for each child. She gives practical guidance for fashioning such a program, empowering parents to take the lead in their child's treatment. At the same time, she cautions against the proliferating, but questionable, treatments hawked to afflicted families. She knows the panic to do something, anything, to help an autistic child, and she offers parents reassurance and support as well as sensible advice, combining knowledge from experience, theory and research.
For parents, autism in a child is heartbreaking. But it need not be overwhelming. Bryna Siegeloffers a new understanding, and a practical, thoughtful approach, that will give parents new hope.

In 1994 the American Psychiatric Association published the groundbreaking diagnostic criteria for autism ('Autistic Disorder'). Since then, the reported numbers of people with autism have increased from one in every 2,000 children to one in every 50-a 75% rise in just the last decade. With big business emerging for everyone including basic researchers, therapists, and educators, while the media in turn promotes sensationalized reports like autism caused by vaccines, or claims that thousands of hours of 1:1 behavior modification programs can cure it, the need for a level playing field has emerged. The Politics of Autism explores new viewpoints on 'old' issues: Is there more autism? What's wrong with how autism gets diagnosed? Are standard treatments really appropriate given the life course of people with autism? Why does fear of vaccines persist? Are we effectively allocating autism research dollars if the goal is to help people with autism? What does this modern fascination with something like autism tell us about our society today? What does it tell us about what people will believe, and how little it can take to get them to believe something? This book takes on the politics of autism by exposing the sub rosa truths that are often impolitic or seemingly too sensitive to discuss. All drawn from data-readers will explore unabashed contrarian views on autism epidemiology, autism service provision, autism education, and autism research. Each chapter will focus both on the controversies themselves, and how these controversies came to be. Chapters divided to address a different set of issues, data, and social policy recommendations for changes can be read as a sequence or individual treatments on the selected topics. Each chapter will shine light into arenas of the autism world where Bryna Siegel, who has worked in the autism field for 40 years, has had a ringside seat or sometimes been in the ring herself. Each chapter will provide a narrative of the different false alarms, false cures, soft-as-quicksand science, or other snake oil that has heralded the surfacing of some aspect of the world of autism into public consciousness. In addition, readers will find a chapter-by-chapter bibliography with URLs to many engaging references posted on the author's website. References include popular media/internet resources. Dr. Bryna Siegel's work has focused on the development and learning of children with autism. She analyzes autism as the confluence of expected and atypical development as a way to understanding autism-specific learning disabilities and learning styles. Her interest in the politics of autism grows from years of observing disparities in access to autism diagnosis, autism education, and support for families living with autism. In The Politics of Autism, she explores American positivism, internet disinformation, and focuses on autism as a case example of how societal forces have led to wasteful and ineffective autism education, false hope for cures, pyrrhic battles about vaccines, lack of vision to plan for adults with autism, and costly medical research that helps no one with autism, but expropriates dollars that could be directed to improving lives. Analysis of each issue concludes with recommendations for social policy changes.

A compassionate and accessible guide on living with and caring for a developmentally disabled sibling.