An opinionated and deeply compassionate examination of the lives of communication-impaired people.
A behavioral expert looks at the lives of noncommunicative patients and discusses strategies for helping them.
At the heart of Houvouras’ book is a segment of the population he calls “the silent”: nonverbal, nonvocal, speech-impaired people, those with “minimal communication” who are “consigned to a life where they may talk minimally or not at all.” Over his years interacting with such people, from those on the autistic spectrum living in group homes to people isolated by other societal factors, the author, director of experiential training at the Florida Institute of Technology, has seen many treatment fads come and go (like the assisted-typing method of facilitated communication, or FC), all of which he dismisses as not being grounded in science. He instead champions applied behavior analysis (ABA), which “emphasizes individualized assessments and behavior plans.” Houvouras draws on his long experience to tell the stories of some of “the silent” whom he’s known over the years, detailing their struggles and their setbacks resulting from ineffective treatment strategies. There’s “Mr. A. Number 1,” for instance, who was a child when the author first met him and who’d been let down by the state, the educational system, and a care network that opted against using ABA. Readers also meet a gentle, almost entirely nonverbal autistic man in his 20s named Dan, whose family doggedly pursued FC even though Houvouras maintained that the technique is a failure that should be dropped from the therapeutic repertoire. The author is adept at translating his experiences in clinical practice into relatable human stories; he acknowledges that people with conventional communication skills can find “the silent” to be alien or off-putting, and he effectively highlights the universal human characteristics that a lack of conversational abilities often masks. The author’s belief that we all have “the abilities to overcome and redefine ourselves” comes across as strongly sincere, as does his empathy for those who live beyond “the clutter, the clatter, and the need to hear an answer.” Readers with nonverbal loved ones will find much of this book invaluable.
An opinionated and deeply compassionate examination of the lives of communication-impaired people.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9798988654896
Page Count: 184
Publisher: KeyPress Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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