Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Focusing on 'three faces of autism'; problems of connection, problems of tolerance and problems of control, this book goes beyond the label to the systems and mechanics of what is going on. Unlike any text books written by non-autistic professionals, it gives detailed suggestions on strategies to reduce these burdens in a way which takes account of the experience of 'autism', from the inside. This book looks at motivations from a distinctly autistic perspective but, more importantly, focuses on reducing the vastly unexplored area of anti-motivations experienced by people with autism-spectrum conditions.
This is Donna Williams' first of four published text books and a bestseller in the field of developmental disabilities, published in 1996, dramatically altered the way professionals worked with those on the autistic spectrum and is now sold in various languages around the world.
Synopsis
Donna William's challenging new book, written by an autistic person for people with autism and related disorders, carers, and the professionals who work with them, is a practical handbook to understanding, living with and working with autism. Exploring autism from the inside, it shows clearly how the behaviours associated with autism can have a range of different causes, and in many cases reflect the autistic person's attempt to gain control over their internal world. The sensory and perceptual problems that challenge a person with autism are described in depth, together with strategies for tackling them so as to enable that person to take more control of their lives. Donna Williams comments on the various approaches to autism, drawing out those strategies that are of real use, and explaining why some approaches may prove counterproductive, leaving the autistic person feeling even more isolated and misunderstood. Taking the view that understanding autism is the key to managing the condition, Donna William's book will bring illumination to all those who have felt baffled and frustrated by the outside appearance of autism. It contains a wealth of helpful suggestions, insights and new ideas, exploding old myths and promoting a view that all those involved with autism will find empowering and creative.
About the Author
When Donna Williams was nine they found out that she actually couldn't understand sentences. Hard to imagine that from there she has become an author with 9 published books including two international bestsellers.
Her writing career began when a typewriter was left in her room at the age of nine. She typed a whole line of letter patterns. Over the next four years the letter patterns would become word lists and the word lists would eventually become poetry hidden in a roof void for nobody to see. Donna Williams' career as a writer had begun.
She went on to write songs, re-entered education and developed an ability to write essays, then exploded into the literary world with her first two autobiographical works, the international bestsellers, Nobody Nowhere and then Somebody Somewhere. She followed these with two more autobiographical works, Like Color To The Blind and Everyday Heaven, which also sold internationally and then wrote a series of text books, Autism; An Inside Out Approach, Autism and Sensing; The Unlost Instinct, Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage of Involuntary Self Protection Responses and The Jumbled Jigsaw and the poetry work, Not Just Anything.
Today she continues to write in a range of genres, including moving into fiction and film. Outside of her writing, she is an accomplished artist, sculptor and songwriter and regularly gives international lectures. She lives in the hills in semi-rural Melbourne with her husband Chris.