How to Find a Four-Leaf Clover
What Autism Can Teach Us About Difference, Connection, and Belonging
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A powerfully moving read from beloved Love on the Spectrum star and disability rights advocate Jodi Rodgers, sharing lessons from her work within the autistic community that can help create a more inclusive society for us all.
In How to Find a Four-Leaf Clover, Jodi Rodgers gives us inspiring, heartwarming stories from her years of experience as a teacher and counselor supporting autistic people. While acknowledging our differences, these stories invite us to expand our empathy and compassion for the neurodivergent people in our lives. Throughout, Rodgers explores the powerful impact of embracing neurodiversity and forming meaningful connections with those around us. Each chapter highlights a different story and an aspect of human behavior, including:
How we perceive the world, and our own unique experience of thinking, sensing, and feeling How we communicate our perspective to others, understand one another, and express ourselves How we can better connect with one another
With dozens of moving stories, How to Find a Four-Leaf Clover will give readers a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the neurodiverse community around them. Above all, it will inspire a profound sense of belonging, revealing that we’re much more similar than we think.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rodgers, a relationship counselor on Netflix's Love on the Spectrum, draws from 30 years' worth of experience working with autistic individuals in her sensitive debut exploration of neurodivergence. Writing that "the skills of empathy are... tested by difference," Rodgers sheds light on the behavior of people she's encountered throughout her career, among them six-year-old Emily, who threw a fit when she discovered that her neighborhood grocery store layout had shifted ("rigid and repetitive thinking" makes it tough for people with autism to accept change), and Sebastien, an elementary schooler who struggled to participate in classroom activities that didn't reference Spider-Man (an "incredible capacity to hyper-focus" on one topic "to the exclusion of everything else" is a classic autism trait). Elsewhere, Rodgers draws broader lessons about the nuances of human needs and behaviors—a discussion of how autistic people can struggle to understand reciprocity leads to her observation that "it's about knowing each other's needs... we can demonstrate reciprocity by giving to people, but they might support us by giving back in a completely different way." Basing her conclusions on fine-grained observations of her clients, Rodgers illuminates the contours of the autistic brain and in the process makes a deeply felt case for the value of embracing others' neurological particularities. It's a persuasive testament to "the beauty in difference."
