So when it came time to update my book to current terminology and sensitivities, I was faced with a very difficult task to get things right, especially knowing that word usage and correctness changes regularly. Knowing future generations of young people on the spectrum and their families will get to enjoy this book for years to come makes me think we will have a more understanding, accepting generation of cat lovers who become better friends to autistic children and adults alike.

In the Netherlands, animals are used to provide a short break for children with ASD at care farms ( 23), but having a calming animal at home offers a more consistent and convenient source of affection. Less-positive descriptions pertaining to behavior of the child or cat included: “My son does not interact at all with cats or dogs; he just ignores them”; “In the past, when the child was young, the cat did not like the hyper behavior of the child and would avoid most interaction, but as the child has gotten older, the cat will seek out the child.The text is simple but doesn't talk down to older readers; it just explains Asperger's Syndrome in a very easy-to-understand way. These families already deal with many diagnostics and assessments of their children and face many challenges in providing resources, care, and education for their children.

The pictures of all the cute cats, together with the short but precise description of what it’s like to be on the autism spectrum, makes it the perfect book to learn about autism in a gentle, heart warming and humorous way, regardless of whether you are on the spectrum, a parent or other family member, classmate, friend, colleague or professional in the autism field. Positive comments from parents of six less severe ASD children included: “Son says the cat definitely improves his quality of life. The child’s gender and the cat’s gender, intact status, and breed first were found to be insignificant factors. In 2006, I wrote All Cats HaveAspergerSyndrome with the express purpose to demystify the diagnosis in a fun, easy-to-read format. When I told my parents that I was fortunate enough to have the honor of writing a foreword to one of my favorite books in the world, my mom freaked out, remembering this was the book that caught her eye so many years back and that continues to touch our hearts.The results of this analysis are presented in Figure 1, where the nodes with the highest quality child/cat interactions appear on the right of the graph, while the nodes with lowest quality interactions appear on the left. Another described the cat and child ignoring each other, and two said the child was slightly fearful of the cat. Among the 88 respondents to this web survey, 64 met the following inclusion criteria: responding adults having at least one child aged 3–12 years diagnosed with ASD (the specified child); having in the household at least one cat 1 year of age or older (the specified cat); completing the 39 questions of the survey; and residing in North America.

However, the likelihood of the cat being quite affectionate or moderately affectionate with the child did not differ among groups.Being the only cat in the house seemed to be a risk factor for heightened aggression and reduced affection by the specified cat; however, in such cases, the child had only one cat available. We can assume that this increased participation by people whose families had more positive relationships with their cats. Among the 11 less severe ASD children, three cats were more affectionate with adults and two with the specified child. This book is an updated version of the author’s 2006 All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and since then what is considered acceptable terminology has changed and the author says in her note for this edition that people’s views are not all the same and that she hopes ‘readers will see past the finer details of disagreement and join me in celebrating, and deepening our understanding of, the richness and diversity of the autistic community. It’s a book that reminds me that being different is not a bad thing and, sometimes, people on the autism spectrum are both celebrated and misunderstood just like our feline companions.