Donna Williams delves into the lived experiences of individuals with autism, offering a unique window into their perception of the world. Her writing explores a reality of disorienting colors, patterns, and sounds, where the external often blurs with internal sensations. Williams details the struggle between the need for connection and the dread of physical contact, along with self-soothing behaviors as a means of affirming existence. Her prose is brave, analytical, and free of self-pity, revealing the complexity of autism and its profound impact on an individual's life.
Exploring the intricacies of the autistic experience, the book presents a poetic journey through time and emotion. It captures the intensity of sensory overload and shutdowns, revealing the struggles of alienation and the profound highs and lows of feeling. The writings offer an immediate and candid glimpse into the author's inner world, highlighting the challenges and passions that accompany extreme emotional experiences.
An Insider's Approach to the Treatment of Autistic Spectrum 'Fruit Salads'
This book, authored by a prominent figure in the autism field, serves as a valuable course text that emphasizes effective strategies and treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). It confronts common misconceptions surrounding ASDs and advocates for a transformative approach among professionals in the field, aiming to enhance understanding and support for individuals with these conditions.
This book takes us deeper into Williams' journey. She recounts the funny, sometimes harrowing awakenings arising from sessions with a cognitive psychologist. We travel with her in her breakthroughs in working with autistic children and adults like her, as she finally finds a way of 'simply being' among others, without selling out who she really is.
This is the fourth installment in Williams' series of autobiographies about her life with autism. A humorous, riveting, roller-coaster of a book, Everyday Heaven covers the monumental nine years from the time Ian left their accidental, 'autistic marriage', to finally knowing what life was like without the invisible cage of her 'Exposure Anxiety'.
A magnificent, moving ecological fable, perfect for fans of Annihilation and Oryx & Crake.
Exposure anxiety is increasingly understood as a crippling condition affecting a high proportion of people on the autism spectrum. Based on personal experience, this book describes the condition and its underlying physiological causes, and presents approaches and strategies that can be used to combat it.
This 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. It shows clearly how the behaviours associated with autism can have a range of different causes.
Williams explains how the senses of autistic people work, suggesting they are 'stuck' at an early development stage common to everyone. She calls this the system of sensing, claiming that most people move to the system of interpretation which enables them to make sense of the world, but they lose various abilities which people with autism retain.
In Donna's relationship with Ian, a man with difficulties related to her own, we watch the two of them break through their rock-solid emotional barriers and dare to defy all the rules imposed by the autistic condition of 'exposure anxiety'. Their struggle is told with Donna's characteristic humour, insight and sense of fragility.
In the acclaimed sequel to Nobody Nowhere--in which Donna Williams gives readers a guided tour of life with autism--Williams explores the four years since her diagnosis and her attempts to leave her "world under glass" and live normally. NPR sponsorship.