Description
Book SynopsisThe thrilling extreme sporting adventure of Free Solo meets the heartfelt honesty of growing up with autism depicted in Atypical in WITHOUT RESTRAINT (98,000 words), the story of a fatherâs unlikely discovery of his sonâs prodigious talent for skiing that ultimately saved his sonâs life. Ryan DeLenaâs childhood was a complicated one. When he was a toddler, he would launch into impassioned monologues from classic books and films, was fascinated by ventilation systems, and loved climbing the walls of his houseâliterally. His eidetic memory, penchant for brutal honesty, and defiance led to a diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorderâa subclass of the autism spectrum. When public preschools werenât equipped to manage him, his parents, Rob and Mary Beth, enrolled him in a private âœtherapeuticâ school program, a decision that locked Ryan into a school that relied on destructive methods of behavior modificationâincluding painful physical restraints and extended isolation, practices that
