Review of Jenny McCarthy's Louder Than Words

Jenny McCarthy's book Louder than Words is not just a book of autism. It is a book of a mother's love and devotion for her child and the determination to find some answers.

The book starts out telling how Jenny went into her son Evan's room to find him having a seizure. Bringing him from doctor to doctor and repeatedly being misdiagnosed, she finally finds a doctor that diagnoses him as autistic. After the initial shock Jenny then starts to search for some answers. She gives a good perspective on raising an autistic child, the trials and tribulations of every day life. She tells how she found some answers, resources, the treatments they tried and her viewpoints of what did and didn't work. At the end of her story she states how Evan was reevaluated
and they had never seen a recovery like his before. Jenny feels because she found the reason for his autism, she was able to find the solutions.

Jenny is to be applauded for her openness and honesty. I feel this book can give some hope and guidelines to parents of autistic children that do not know where to turn. But, it also suggests that through a combination of diet, supplements and behavioral health there can be a cure for autism. As an aunt of an autistic niece and nephew, I believe this could cause a lot of false hopes. My sister in-law does the three methods mentioned here with my niece and nephew, and a number of others. These methods do help some and to different degrees in both of the children. But, I feel leading people to believe that there can be a cure for autism is misleading.

Pros:
202 pages of easy reading

A heart warming story of a mother's love

Has some useful advice and recourses

Cons:
Inappropriate language

Some of the treatments are controversial

She may have access to resources that an average family would not

I recommend this book if you are looking for a heart warming story of a mother's love for her child. Or if you are looking for some guidelines on what you can choose to do for treatments in autism. I do not feel you should read this book in hopes of finding an answer for curing autism.

At the end of her book she has six and a half pages of "What to do", information and resources of a pamphlet she has put together.
Jenny is now the spokesperson for an autistic organization called TACA - Talk about Curing Autism.
She is also co-founder of the DVD's "Teach2talk" developed by a speech language pathologist to help teach critical language and behavior skills.