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Like colour to the blind: soul searching and soul finding
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 1999
- Pagination:
- 239p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Like Colour to the Blind continues with autistic author Donna Williams’ autobiographical journey. Donna, who never knew what it was like to feel her hand and her leg at the same time, let alone experience tell the difference between real communication and automatic ‘talking doll’ responses, tells the fascinating story of her relationship with Ian, an asexual man with ‘multiple personalities’, who is somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum. Together they set out to find out what is real and what is not. They develop an NLP-like strategy called ‘checking’ which appeals only to the feeling part of the brain and gets around stored learned responses. This ‘checking’ essentially triggers the thoughts, feelings and choices of the ‘real self’ buried under society. They pledge to follow through at all costs with what they find are their real wants and likes. Intertwined with Donna and Ian’s story is the story of their friendship with Alex, a non-verbal teenager who knows all about being autistic and unable to control one’s own appearance, utterances and actions. Alex has just managed to communicate for the first time in his life. Along the way Donna, Ian and Alex all journey into the world of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome.
Not just anything: a collection of thoughts on paper
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 144p.
- Place of publication:
- London
The book is a mosaic of logic, passion and philosophical musings, sometimes jolting, sometimes moving, often illuminating. In it the author takes a poetic adventure into places past, present and beyond. Often intertwined with the world of autistic experience, her writings divulge with immediacy, a person in the grip of overload and shutdowns, of extreme sensory and emotional highs and passions, of alienation from self, from body and fear of the intensity of emotion, of the struggle to know self, to communicate, to comprehend. At other times, her writing somehow transcends the often assumed limitations of autism, and she dissects so many of the concepts we take for granted, bringing us face to face with our own social constructions of 'reality' and so called 'normality'.
Exposure anxiety: the invisible cage: an exploration of self-protection responses in the autism spectrum and beyond
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 336p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Exposure anxiety is increasingly understood as a crippling condition affecting a high proportion of people on the autism spectrum. To many it is an invisible cage, leaving the person suffering from it aware, but buried alive in their own involuntary responses and isolation. This book describes the condition and its underlying physiological causes, and presents a range of approaches and strategies that can be used to combat it. Based on personal experience, the book shows how people with autism can be shown how to emerge from the stranglehold of exposure anxiety and develop their individuality. It progressively shapes the individual torn between experiencing it as the sanctuary and the prison. Exposure Anxiety makes it hard to stand noticing you are noticing. It can make love a form of torture, repel you from the sound of your own voice, make you meaning deaf to your own words and those of others and compel you to avoid, divert from or retaliate against the very things that which most have the power to reach you. Exposure Anxiety progressively co-opts the identity of the person as separate to the condition or it leaves them aware but buried alive in their own involuntary responses and isolation. Exposure Anxiety is the involuntary social-emotional self-protection response that needs no enemy. It turns the world upside-down, makes no yes and yes no and co-opts and defies conventional, non-autistic teaching techniques.
Everyday heaven: journeys beyond the stereotypes of autism
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 175p.
- Place of publication:
- London
The author details her explorations of sexuality and orientation, the challenge of coming to terms with the sudden deaths of those closest to her and finally knowing what life was like without the invisible cage of her 'Exposure Anxiety'. This book will help autistic readers and professionals seeking to better understand those on the autism spectrum.
The jumbled jigsaw: an insider's approach to the treatment of autistic spectrum 'fruit salads'
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 392p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This book exposes autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) not as single entities but as a combination of a whole range of often untreated, sometimes easily treatable, underlying conditions. Exploring everything from mood, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and tic disorders to information processing and sensory perceptual difficulties, including dependency issues, identity problems and much more, Donna demonstrates how a number of such conditions can combine to form a 'cluster condition' and underpin the label 'autism spectrum disorder'. The author encourages and empowers families to look at what they can do to change their child's environment to address anxiety, overload and other issues. She also gives carers the necessary information to navigate the booming autism marketplace and demand the right tools for the job. The author also challenges professionals to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to identifying and treating the cluster conditions that make up an autism spectrum diagnosis, and to improve service delivery to those in need.
Somebody somewhere: breaking free from the world of autism
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 1999
- Pagination:
- 208p.
- Place of publication:
- London
The author describes the her d painful growth as she completes her education, continues psychiatric treatment, experiences the unwelcome publicity brought about by the publication of her books. The author takes the reader inside the mind and emotions of an autistic person. She conveys her impressions of people and surroundings as might someone returning from an extended trip. Particularly moving is her newly claimed sense of inhabiting her own body, a connection which she describes as "the first security in life, which had been missing."
Autism and sensing: the unlost instinct
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 1998
- Pagination:
- 131p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Explains how the senses of a person with autism work, suggesting that they are 'stuck' at an early development stage common to everyone. The author calls this the system of sensing, claiming that most people move on to the system of interpretation which enables them to make sense of the world. In doing so they lose various abilities which people with autism retain. Suggests that the constraints of space and time do not exist in the same way for autistic people, and that the emotional as well as the physical world is seen and therefore approached in a different way.
Autism: an inside-out approach; an innovative look at the mechanics of "autism" and its developmental "cousins"
- Author:
- WILLIAMS Donna
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 1996
- Pagination:
- 334p.,list of orgs.
- Place of publication:
- London
Written by a person with autism for people with autism and related disorders, carers, and the professionals who work with them. A practical handbook for understanding, living with and working with autism, it explores autism from the inside. Shows how the behaviours associated with the condition can have a rang e of different causes, and in many cases reflect the autistic person's attempt to gain control over their internal world. The author comments on the various approaches to autism and highlights the ones that are genuinely useful.