An Exceptional Pupil: Teaching Aspergers and High-Functioning Autistic Children

In an entertaining synthesis of personal experience and scientific investigation, Angel Griffin describes effective methods for teaching the exceptional pupil, the Aspergers child. As she and her son travel his road to actualization through home education, her understanding grows with every problem they solve. Using the latest scientific findings to inform her teaching, she makes practical sense of what professionals know. With clarity and precision, her writing demonstrates the elegance of her essential principles. A book about cultivating whole-brain thinking, it never shrinks from the big picture-what connects the features of autism and what this tells us about teaching our children.

Angel Griffin grew up in an academic atmosphere, yet she struggled throughout childhood and into college with the undiagnosed learning disabilities of dyslexia and faulty visual field perception. Despite these handicaps, she pursued her interest in literature, technical writing, and science-particularly cognitive development. She attended Prescott College, the University of Heidelberg in Germany, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, and Scripps College of the Claremont Colleges in California, where she earned an honors degree in comparative literature. When her son was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, she decided to school him at home. For nine years she and her son worked together to ensure that he acquired an excellent education in liberal arts, mathematics, and the nuances of social interaction.