Table of Contents

Part 1: Getting Oriented. Introduction. Part 2: Into the Depths. 1. Fuel System and Electrical Problems: Health and Autism. 2. Different Ways of Navigating the World: The System of Sensing Versus Interpretations. 3. Issues of Overload: Being Mono and Delayed. 4. Experiencing the World Rather Differently: Sensory-Perceptual Issues. 5. Losing Control of One's Body: Impulse-Control Problems. 6. Strange Emotional Spaces: Mood-Regulation Problems. 7. Invisible Cages: Anxiety Issues. 8. Being Joined at the Hip: Dependency Issues. 9. Bad Parenting or Bad Match? Boundary Issues. 10. A Matter of Perspective: Trauma, Neglect, Abuse and Grief. 11. Who Am I and Which Side Am I On?: Identity Issues. Part 3: The Fallout. 12. The Fallout. Appendix 1: Current Professionals and Services. Appendix 2: Autism Spectrum Cluster Checklist. Appendix 3: Referral List Based on Checklist. References. Index

Promotional Information

Looks at ASDs not as single entities but as a combination of often untreated, sometimes easily treatable, underlying conditions

About the Author

Donna Williams was born in Australia in 1963 and raised in a working-class inner-city area in Australia. She grew up hearing words such as 'deaf', 'disturbed', 'crazy' and 'spastic', and like many able people with autism born in the 1960s and earlier, she wasn't formally diagnosed with autism until adulthood. As well as writing, composing, painting and sculpting, she lectures and runs workshops on autism all around the world. Donna is also the author of four autobiographies - Nobody Nowhere, Somebody Somewhere, Like Colour to the Blind and Everyday Heaven - along with several other books on autism, Autism and Sensing, Autism: An Inside-Out Approach, Exposure Anxiety, and a collection of her poetry, Not Just Anything: A Collection of Thoughts on Paper. These books are also published by and available from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Her first international best-selling autobiography, Nobody Nowhere, is currently under option by a Hollywood film company. After 13 years in the UK, she now lives back in Australia with her husband Chris.

Reviews

I would definitely use this book in a class I was going to teach to either parents or future clinicians. This book is very interesting and packed with case examples, interesting stories, and reader-friendly language that makes it easier for professionals and laypeople alike to understand. I encourage anyone who works with children with disabilities to read it to begin to put together the pieces of the puzzle that diagnoses like autism and autism spectrum disorder create for a child with this disability. No matter what language is used, helping a child create a better world for himself or herself is all that should matter.
*PsycCRITIQUES*

Pleasure and repeated cries of "eureka" were my reactions to reading this book in which Donna Williams explains the reality of difficulties I had witnessed in children on the autistic spectrum. I particularly liked the description of autistic spectrum disorders as a fruit salad - containing a range a range of ingredients in varying quantities, giving a distinct taste each time.
*Community Care*

The Jumbled Jigsaw: An Insider's Approach to the Treatment of Autistic Spectrum "Fruit Salads,' by Donna Williams, covers topics that will inform and educate practitioners along with educators of future practitioners who may want to use this book in their classrooms. I can imagine this book being used by counselling, clinical, and school psychologists who need to become better informed about the issues faced by parents of a child with this diagnosis. The book is user friendly and is easy to read. The author's writing style, coupled with language that is easy to understand, makes this a book that could be easily used by both professionals and families of children with this diagnosis... I feel this book does a wonderful job of explaining things to parents, and from a parent's point of view. Throughout the book, the author uses phrases that start with "I." This makes the book real to people, and they can begin to imagine the author actually in the situation being described. I would definitely use this book in a class I was going to teach to either parents or future clinicians. This book is very interesting and packed with case examples, interesting stories, and reader-friendly language that makes it easier for professionals and laypeople alike to understand.
*PsycCRITIQUES of the American Psychological Association*

The real strength of the book is to challenge practitioners to go beyond the label of autism in order to be a real help; I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as it was challenging on every page, I think it will appeal to practitioners with a wide experience of children with autism and other complex mixtures of difficulties that do not fit neatly into conventional labels. As Donna herself commented her ideas will interest those with an open mind and holistic perspective.
*NAPLIC*