Publisher's Synopsis
This concise volume offers an accessible overview on recent clinical and research perspectives addressing autism and autistic functioning. Offering an innovative lens, the book benefits from two different angles: a concrete and pragmatical view of an expert clinician with three decades of practice in diagnosis and treatment of autism, as well as a more "theoretic" and "long-term" view of a researcher that works on neural and computational architecture of (a)typical neurocognitive functioning.Trying to understand autism beyond its behavioral symptoms, the book spans from clinical descriptions (e.g., communicating diagnosis; clinical intervention; prognosis) to recent neuroscientific evidence supporting a potential perspective-shift. The fil rouge of this volume can be summarized in three fundamental aspects that should orient any clinical practice in the context of autism (e.g., diagnosis; treatment; monitoring; etc.): we need an age-dependent, context-dependent, and functioning-dependent approach.Understanding Autism and Autistic Functioning is a crucial reading for parents and caregivers, and professionals in health, education and social care.
