Books for children in DS class explaining autism

[chuckeyegg]

I've been asked by the SENCO whether there are any books about autism that the teacher could share with the class. Most of these books I have seen have not been great can anyone recommend one?

Has anyone been through this? I was wondering whether to suggest a talk from the autism advisory service. It is bound to raise lots of questions from the children. I also think it would be good to be there to assist and see what they are being told.

Any advice please? Thanks

Sorry should have said DS is 5 and in reception.

Thank you for your reply, how did you DS's class respond?

'All Cats have Aspergers' is a good one for that age, full of cute kitten pictures illustrating autistic behaviours.

I've just been reading 'Can I tell you about...' to my 7yr old in the hope that he might spot himself but to no avail yet. DD(9) on the other hand read it and immediately thought her best friend!

My DS's advisory teacher came in and gave a talk to the rest of the class when DS2 was in Y1. I found it really useful. The rest of the class went from calling him 'naughty DS' to being supportive overnight. It filtered through to the parents as well, which also made my life easier. Disclosure isn't for everyone, but there is so obviously something different about my DS2 that I was glad people knew it wasn't my parenting...

There's Looking After Louis by Lesley Ely and Polly Dunbar as well. It might be more use to that age group. Maybe it's one of the ones you tried but didn't find helpful though? I can't read it myself without crying, so perhaps I should pass it on... it is really lovely though, honest.

It's a great idea to talk about it with such young children, is it standard practice or a discretionary topic? TBH I believe it would be more useful than some of the topics covered, and it might be the only way it gets discussed overtly. You don't see any characters with autism in Postman Pat or similar; maybe physical disabilities are sometimes shown, but invisible conditions are more or less ignored.

Thanks very much for all your replies, DS class have been brilliant and really accepting of him and his teacher has really helped him settle in to school. He has been really lucky.