The Mind Tree: A Miraculous Child Breaks the Silence of Autism

From the perspective of a grandmother, this book is most helpful in understanding the thoughts, thinking patterns, and behaviors of my own autistic grandson. To be told by someone autistic that he behaves a certain way but feels another way helps one to know both the capabilities of the child, but to also know how to help that child fit into the social circumstances into which he is placed. When an autistic child misbehaves, one should guide him to the right behavior in a positive way. Not understanding how he thinks sometimes makes the positive approach difficult.Made clear by Tito are the significance of routine and consistency, but helping an autistic child to widen his boundaries (as Samo, his mother, shows us) is equally important. How else could Tito grow in his knowledge of English and in his ability to write! I plan to purchase this book for both the natural mother who has from birth shown her love and acceptance of my autistic grandson and for the step mother, who has very lovingly taken on the role of motherhood for someone so challenging as a severely autistic boy soon to be 9. It is my hope that the book will also interest my son, the boy's father, and help my son realize what he has often thought--that some day little Rylan may come out of his "hidden" world and into the "real" world. There is hope!

Halfway through this book and I already had to write a review... Anyone who loves someone with severe autism NEEDS this book!!! So enlightening. Creates such a deeper understanding. Brought me to the brink of tears more than once. This is also a very FAST read, as "Tito" is such an enthralling and eloquent writer! When I finish this, I'll be ordering his other works.

This is a fascinating little book written by a child with severe autism. It is in two parts, one written when he was 8 and the other a few years later. There are a number of wonderful insights. I bought it as a gift for a friend who teaches autistic kids and read it before I gave it to her. She enjoyed it very much too.

Excellent story .. keeps you reading

I still find it difficult to comprehend how a young person, autistic, can be so articulate and self-aware. Makes one wonder about all our assumptions about people.

Tito's story, told so poetically and profoundly by Tito, is such a beautiful read---The story of an "outlier" perhaps, but as with other "outliers", he tells us so much about the uniqueness of each human mind and the insatiable power to create. I recommend this book to anyone, but especially people who have challenging children, or who work with children or young adults with challenges of all kinds.

This is a MUST for parents of a child with autism. Tito's hidden abilities are astonishing, giving hope to families of non-verbal children.

This book gave me surprising insights into this author's experience of life with autism. If you're interested in the perspectives of others, you'll like it, too.

As a parent of a non verbal 17 year old severely autistic boy, I know he has understanding and awareness beyond what he can communicate or show and it can be frustrating. I struggled with the style of this at first but that is what made me engage with it as an authentic insight into a unique mind. I am aware that each person with autism is individual so I can't translate across to my son but it has been so insightful into some of the possibilities. I bought a highlighter to go back through it and pick out some of the key things for me - the sense of being scattered, the issue with relating mind and body, the knowing why but not the how and needing physical prompts all make sense from my experience of my son. What an amazing mum he has. Its odd because I think I watched a tv programme about them when my son was little before I had any concept of his autism as this only emerged in his second year, and I remember being fascinated and impressed then. It has taken me this long to find them again despite all my many googles and searches on autism and I did remember vaguely having watched this. I have tried as a parent to do the right things, but wonder if I should have been more pushy, more like her.

As a person that works with autism everyday this book was a great read, an wonderful incite into the mind of an autistic person on first person basis. Fascinating, love it

This is a very helpful book that opens a door and allows us to gain a glimpse of the mind of autism.