Stacey, Patricia. The Boy Who Loved Windows: Opening the Heart and Mind of a Child Threatened with Autism. Cambridge, MA and New York: Da Capo Press, 2003. 300 pgs. Cloth 0-7382-0666-0.

Reviewed by Mark Osteen, Loyola College in Maryland.

Stacey's book is a forthright, often eloquent account of her family's struggle to help her son Walker who, as an infant, was weak, hypersensitive, and seemed fascinated by the light coming through windows. Suspecting a developmental disorder, Stacey and her husband researched sensory integration problems and feeding disorders and obtained treatment before Walker was even a year old. They achieved a breakthrough by diligently applying neurologist Stanley Greenspan's "floor time" play therapy. Based on the idea that children's development springs more from emotional and physical than from purely intellectual stimulation, Greenspan's methods yielded near-miraculous results for Walker, who overcame his disabilities and, as the book ends, appears as a bright, even gifted, pre-schooler. One can't help but admire this family's persistence and dedication, which were, in many ways, nothing short of heroic.

Stacey is a skilful writer who explains scientific theories about brain development, sensory integration and therapeutic interventions with lucidity, humor and flair. Her remarkable sensitivity to the sights, sounds and smells of her environment helps to make her prose sing. Perhaps most impressive is the candor with which she reveals her fears and doubts and details her obsession with Walker's health. At times her expectations for this infant may strike one as unrealistic, even ridiculous, but Stacey does not shrink from looking like a ninny: that very fearlessness is part of what made her quest so successful.

The early sections of the book, when Stacey and her husband are scrambling to define and understand Walker's problems, are the strongest. An early chapter in which she reflects on the nature of the senses is a particular highlight. By contrast, the last quarter of the book, when Walker's major deficits have been addressed, seems anticlimactic. She did not convince me that I needed to know about her and her husband's weekend retreat or about Walker's relatively minor difficulties with socializing and aggression.

It is scarcely surprising that Stacey became a true believer in Greenspan's methods: given these results, who wouldn't? The good doctor could hardly ask for a stronger endorsement. Parents of children with developmental disorders, motivated by this family's success story, are likely to flock to his office. But they would do well to keep in mind how much arduous labor Greenspan asked of Stacey's family and the many professionals who worked with Walker. Those parents should also remember (and Stacey might have done more to acknowledge) how lucky this family was---lucky to have access so many generous and wise professionals, and lucky to have so much of that professional help funded by the state of Massachusetts, which apparently has far better resources for developmentally challenged children than do most states. They are also blessedly lucky that Greenspan's methods "took" with their son, for many other families work just as long and hard only to achieve much less triumphant results.

This leads my to my major reservation about the book, which is signaled by its subtitle. What does it mean to be "threatened by autism?" Did Walker have autism or not? Nobody really knows: Stacey never says that he had the disorder, and Greenspan never offered a definitive diagnosis of it, nor should he have, given Walker's age. In fact, Stacey's son did not display either the most common pattern of development in autism--which involves apparent regression in early childhood--or many of its symptoms. One can't help suspecting that a publisher eager to capitalize on the alleged autism epidemic added the subtitle. This misleading subtitle (and Stacey's vagueness about her son's disorder) could foster misapprehensions in parents anxious to "cure" children who really do have autism. Such promises of recovery often add guilt and feelings of inadequacy to the heavy burdens that such parents already carry. These promises, which attend many "autism recovery" memoirs, also fuel the autism community's unfortunate penchant for hysterical overreaction and fad "cures."

But these reservations should not discourage anybody from reading Stacey's book, which I recommend highly for its honesty, its stylish prose, and its inspiring story.