In the academic research community, autism is discussed as a brain disorder with a genetic basis. Yet no specific biomarker can diagnose autism. While the research community is focused on identifying specific mechanisms underlying autism, families are searching for an understanding of the disorder that will enable them to manage their child and to develop a strategy to optimize their child’s potential. In response to this disparate agenda, Holly Bridges has written Reframe Your Thinking Around Autism.
This is a succinctly written book with engaging graphics that provides a new optimistic approach to conceptualize autism. Rather than focusing on the clinical diagnostic tools that have been used to define autism, Holly Bridges focuses on linking many of the compromised functions that are experienced by autistics to features of the Polyvagal Theory, a theory I developed. She accurately notes that the features of the social engagement system described in the theory are depressed in autistics. A depressed social engagement system results in poor facial affect, auditory hypersensitivities, lack of prosody in voice, and an autonomic state that under challenge will shift to support Fight/Flight behaviours or shutdown. This disruption in autonomic state would interfere both with ingestive and digestive processes, symptoms frequently observed in autism. Using the Polyvagal Theory as an organizing principle she introduces a variety of intervention models that potentially could function as neural exercises (i.e. brain plasticity) to rehabilitate the social engagement system and to optimize autonomic regulation.
Unlike most books on autism that are targeted to professionals who evaluate and treat, this unique and readable book effectively connects to the families and the people who directly interact with individuals with autism.
Stephen W. Porges, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, and author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation