Specific Disabilities Books

Many books on this topic are not as positive as this or have a succesful Asperger individual writing it! However, I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure the child and wife who also wrote this book are also mildly disabled too (not necessarilly Asperger's but possibly) and the family is just oblivious of this. That doesn't disvalue anything of what any of them say at all; however if they missed this they missed putting other very important details that should have been covered in this brief book also. If you have Asperger's I hope you can relate with what I'm saying especially after reading this book! Including stating that they know although the author was this way that that doesn't mean they think all people with this syndrome are. They never said they all were but they didn't say the opposite and for some reader's especially people with the syndrome I bet they need to here that in order to not assume they thought otherwise. This book can be useful but, it isn't a complete book on the topic for those just beginning to learn about this syndrome. That's not what I expected or I think what the book is met to be, but the advice could be more Asperger Specific. It is very general good advice for people to take on how to deal with many people not just those with Asperger's. And if you know quite a bit on this topic don't expect to learn anything new. If you want a book on positive Asperger's with the best roll model defiantly get Diagnosing Jefferson instead or additional to this book! It's better especially if you want a more thourough, complete, or slightly more advanced book on the topic. But, to use this book for the man and family as a role model to prove Asperger's can succeeed in the write environment surrounded with the right attidutes both personally and professionally is defiantly a good reason to get this book! The author's a manager for crying out loud!

This book shows some of the day-to-day struggles within a family with one of the members having Asperger Syndrome. Yet the family does a pretty convincing job of communicating that AS has its positive side as well! This is an upbeat helpful book for all who wish to understand their friend, co-worker or loved one with AS.

If you have a friend or family member with aspergers syndrome you simply must read this book. It does a masterful job of helping us "normal" people not only understand someone with AS but also suggests simple adjusments we can make that mean the world to them. I have a close friend with AS and after reading this book I have learned new ways to truly enjoy a wonderful healthy friendship.

While this author does an excellent job of providing personal accounts of having Asperger's, which is a neurobiological condition on the Autism spectrum, there are too many inconsistencies and fallacious claims this book endorses.

Autism and Asperger's (a/A) is NOT a disease. Autism and Asperger's are neurobiological conditions that affect sensory processing; communication and often impede social development. The very suggestion that the a/A spectrum is a disease is just not true and is patently ludicrous.

While I can't give this work a ringing endorsement, I can say that if it has helped others, particularly in intrafamilial relationships understand what people on the autism spectrum contend with, then it has served a good purpose.

I very much enjoyed this book, and found a lot of truth and encouragement in it.
But as a person who has Asperger Syndrome herself, I disagree with some of the generalizations the McCabes use. While it may be true for Patrick that he needs to do several things at once, for instance, it is entirely impossible for me to do more than one thing at a time. Multitasking will often lead to total confusion, and eventually extreme irritability or shutdown in me.
I am also not very organized, I am completely unable to keep my house tidy. And while I fit their concept of Aspies having a high IQ in the gifted range, my sister, who also has AS has normal intelligence (on the other hand, she IS very organized).
So, while all they say is true for Patrick, his gifts, work and relationships, Aspies are individuals, too, and quite different from each other.
That said, I do recommend this book to anyone who has a friend or family member with AS, as it is very helpful in explaining how people with AS think, perceive their surroundings and feel different, and how to make family life pleasant and loving by respecting the AS person (and in turn, the person with AS trying his/her best, to understand and love their family and friends).

As a parent of two special needs children I can honestly say that this book is a must have for any parent who has special needs children in school. I found this book to be a lifesaver when it came to dealing with the school system. It is written in an understandable, practical way that makes it easy to use the information. Whether you are a family member, parent, or just a friend of a person with special needs this book is a must read. If your child has an IEP or doesn't have an IEP but does have special needs this book covers it all.

Special Education can be a difficult thing to manage for parents - and it isn't because there's no one to help them. "Negotiating the Special Education Maze: A Guide for Parents & Teachers" is a guide to the strange problem of simply having too many options available to them. Covering each of the services available and specifying which kind of kinds are available to each of the types of ailments that would require special education, as well as looks as other alternative outlooks towards special needs children,. "Negotiating the Special Education Maze: A Guide for Parents & Teachers" is a complete and comprehensive guide for parents and teachers of special needs children and for community library education collections.

Although this book was written for parents, it provides a clear explanation of the steps to become eligible for special education services, developing an Individualized Education Plan, and making sure that services are received.

This review appeared in the Annotated Bibliography Section of Learning A Living; A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding A Job for People with Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder and Dyslexia by Dale S. Brown

If you are the parent of a child with special needs, and she is a student n public school, be ready to do some big-time advocating to ensure that she gets the special ed. services she needs. As a special education teacher I am amazed at how little parents know about their rights under the IDEA '97 legislation, and how little they advocate for their child at IEP meetings.

This book is a good start to get you, as the parent-advocate, in the frame of mind you need to be in when "negotiating the special education maze." My brief experience in the field has taught me that the most frustrated parents are those that are the least informed about what their rights are. Like trading stocks on the stock market, operating within the criminal justice system, or living in a foreign culture, the domain of special education has a culture, and rules all its own. If the parent does not know how to "play the game," you will be rolled by school districts that pay a lot of lip-service to providing an "education for all," but in practice are only concerned about the "best and the brightest."

I would also highly recommend doing two things if you are a parent of a special needs child, and you are just about to enter "the maze;"

(1) I would look in your local phone directory for a special ed. advocacy group, or some type of parent group, where you can join with other parents and learn about the special ed. field, and what is available in your area. (2) I would also join the Council for Exceptional Children as they are an excellent source of special ed. info. re: legislation, parent rights, advocacy, etc. I hope that this review helps in inspiring you to become better informed about the "system" so that you can obtain the best for your child. I want to stress again how important it is to (a) become as informed as you can regarding your rights as a parent, and your child's rights to a free and appropriate public education as stipulated by federal legislation such as IDEA '97. One of the frustrations I have had as a special ed. teacher is seeing how much lip-service school districts pay to special needs children, but how little is done for them in actual practice. I call special education "the last bastion of discrimination in the public schools." I want to write a book about this some day and call it "Separate and Unequal." ;) And I also want to stress (b) how important it is to become actively involved in a local parent advocacy group. There is strength in numbers, and there are battle-scarred veterans of the special ed. wars who have had to go at it with recalcitrant school districts hammer-and-tong to get even the bare minimum services for their child. I don't mean to be "negative," but I know what I am talking about.

This book gives a neutral overview of the IEP process and supplies you with a minimum of information necessary to participate in meetings. But it may not supply sufficient information to equip a student's advocates with the leverage to get mandated services. The IEP process can be quite adversarial, depending on the jurisdiction, with very substantial funds at stake in providing services. Teachers & other school district personnel may be under instructions NOT to give out information that will unlock services to parents; it can take knowing how to request services using the proper jargon, citing statutory provisions such as "AB3632" and "26.5" for mental health services in California, for instance. School District personnel may evince fear when hearing these requests posed with the proper jargon, in the IEP. Consult with student advocates, such as those searchable in California under the term "Developmental Disabilities Area Board". Professional advocates may accompany you to IEP meetings.

As a Chinese, I can't read the Japanese version, so I can't rate the writing technique of this book. But, base on the Taiwan vesion, I think that the book tell me "a lucky person need many persons to help and support". From the book, I find that, every person will have their limitation, base on the different limitation, we could pick our positive life style and just for these different limitation, we should help others.

I was curious as to what was going on in the mind of this person. Unfortunately, you don't get into the underlying PERSONAL feelings, emotions and thoughts of the main character/author. The title really caught my eye (No One's Perfect) and I thought it would explore more facets of human imperfection. While you initially feel sorry for Oto just from seeing the photo on the cover of the book...by the end, you come to visualize him as a real and regular person. I found the book to be a more of a scrap together simplistic journal of his life so far. I suppose I have never discriminated against the disabled as it's obvious they've lacked something through life. Each individual finds their own way and it's clear that Oto points out how we must value ourselves more & enjoy every single day no matter what. This book is ideal for a little inspiration for any one (at any age) because it is easy to read & helps one examine 'What one should do to make a difference in improving their life'.

No One's Perfect a book about Hirotada Ototake the man with no arms or legs. It takes place in Japan where Oto grows up and deals with the trials and tribulations of life. As kid without a disability most people don't see the reality of the hardships for the disabled or elderly. In this book you follow a young man as he grows up and faces these trials. The book shows us that everyone can do something if we just give it a try.
Imagine what it is like to be two or three feet tall in elementary school with stubs for arms and legs and having your teacher tell you, you are going to learn how to swim. To use at first we think no problem but that's because we don't think of the disability, and for him it was hard. But through it all he still tried his hardest and never gave up. Through out the book he faces many obstacles like this, and he faces them and never gave up.
The story teaches us more then to never give up. It also shows that we all have potential for something, and if we all work together we can reach it. It also shows that the reason people are called disabled is because the way things in society are set up. If people would just take 5 extra minutes to think of ways to set things up to help disabled people they wouldn't be disabled. This many-themed book deals with lots of issues that need to be addressed.
This book is written in an excellent way that captures the hearts of readers of all ages. The language is simple enough for younger people, but complete complex and complete enough to keep adults' attention as well. This all works because he writes in a way that every one can understand and relate to. He does this by putting things in the view of a younger person relay. As you read it you don't think hey some adult wrote this you think that it is written by some one your own age no matter how old you are. Along with being able to get through to younger generations he is able to reach out and touch the lives of adults at the same time.
One thing that didn't work, however, was the way he sometimes jumped around in time. This does not work because he doesn't give enough detail to figure out at what time every thing is happening. But also at the same time he never seems to lose the attention of the reader, through laughter and what he is trying to get through peoples heads.
This book is wonderful for all ages and types of readers. It's full of humor, sadness, pride, hope, love and the want to make your own life better. Along with all the emotions you get to feel, you also get the chance to see some of the issues that some people face every day. Reading this book you begin to realize that life isn't as bad as you had thought it was. After all if this great person could make the best of his life and be happy with out arms, legs or the opportunities of normal people then I think that you can make your own life better. I recommend this book to any one who has a caring heart of the thirst for a wonderful and emotional experience. I also challenge you all to try and do some thing that will help you reach your potential or help make life a little easier for some one you know that cant always do for them selves. Thank you.

A Spiritual Lift

This is an autobiography of a great soul.

The author Oto (Hirotada Ototake) was born without arms and legs( a disease called tetra-amelia). Thanks to his great parents who didn't grieve over his disability, Oto was brought up in a way no different from the able-bodied kids(I bet you are interested in knowing how).In addition, through his experience of being often denied the school opportunities under an explanation that the school didn't have full facilities for wheelchair users, he developed his unique viewpoint - able-bodied people cannot cater to social welfare for the disabled from a more thoughtful perspective than the disabled people themselves. Motivated by this idea, he became actively involved in a campaign for a "barrier-free"society( namely, to make public facilities accessible to those in a wheelchair) as an undergraduate at Japan's prestigious Waseda University.

Enormously amazed by the reassuring tone of Oto, I sailored into a chain of touching stories. A particularly contagious one,to me,was about fashion shopping. Oto is a fashion lover and wouldn't miss any chance to shop on sale at a favorite store.On Jan 15,1998, he took the risk of travelling in a blizzard for a sale starting that day. His rationale was,"I wish that people with disabilities would take more pleasure in the way we dress,both to change society's image of us,and to give a lift to our own lives." Oto,thank you,I did get a lift here.

Ten pictures of Oto can be found in this book.In most of them,Oto smiles so shiningly,which seems to be proving his words" Even with a disability, I am enjoying every single day. No one's perfect."

Another person I must mention is the translator Gerry Harcourt, winner of the 1990 Wheatland Translation Prize. Without his efforts,I couldn't have had so much enjoyment in this book.

One of the main points of the book is that it really shouldn't matter whether or not someone is disabled. That said, being disabled gave Hirotada Ototake many challenges and opportunities which are uncommon. You can imagine the challenges, but what really struck me was how the author took advantage of his opportunities, working hard to get into excellent schools and taking on leadership roles throughout his life... and he's only 4 years older than I am! It seems like an awful lot to accomplish in such a short time.

The best part of this book, however, is not the story or the accomplishments, but the attitude. It's very difficult to read this book without being inspired. When I was younger, I read "Anne of Green Gables" whenever I wanted to remind myself that hard work and dedication can make all sorts of things possible. "No One's Perfect" has the same message and the same kind of inspiration.

The only reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 was that, like some other reviewers, I was hoping for more emotional insight. In some ways, the story is a little too abstract, and I'd like to know how the author FELT, since I know that most of the time, my situation cannot be completely expressed in logical thoughts alone.

Great book!

I poured over this book after receiving my child's evaluation. Full of nuts and bolts explanations on various learning difficulties. Gave me hope for the future. I couldn't help but wonder if it shouldn't be updated since it is now 20 years old and much has happened in the study of children's learning issues. Still, it was clearly ahead of its time.

I was hoping for information on how I could work with my son. There were some good tips for parents, but I felt that this book was more about working with school system and once properly diagnosed, the school system would direct the efforts to help the child. I'm one of those who doesn't completely trust the system and wants to do more for myself. Still it gave me some information that I didn't already have that I can use when working with my son's teachers. I thought it did good job of describing the issues for smart kids who are having trouble in school, especially in the area of language. It described how school personnel test and asses and child for the various issues and what the test scores mean. I thought the case histories were very illustrative.

This book was a God-send just at the time of giving up on the school system-- I took charge and looked for an answer to why my son who was so bright has hated school since Kindergarten. I found out why in this book!! The author lovingly and astutely explains how and at what point the learning process can break down. I was able to pinpoint that area in my son and then use the practical advice Ms. Vail offered. AN ABSOLUTELY MUST BOOK FOR FUTURE TEACHERS (and parents seeking understanding and practical advice). TEACHERS NEED TO BE ABLE TO "SEE" A CHILD WHO IS FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS BECAUSE OF A STRUGGLE HE/SHE IS HAVING WITH AN UNRECOGNIZED LEARNING BREAKDOWN.

All in all the book is okay. It tends to teach by example and allegory but there isn't data behind the stories to back up the conclusions. There is an ample bibliography in the back for anyone interested in following up.

When my child was in the process of being evaluated for possible learning disabilities, I was given this book to read. It was like "deja vue"....so many of the stories/examples within the book fit my child's situation exactly. It helped me understand her evaluation results and also helped me to understand her better. This book was pivotal in leading our whole family down the path to understanding, advocating and supporting our child at home and in the school. It's been 6 years now, and I still re-read parts of it.

This fully updated second edition of Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD is an outstanding compendium of explanation and advice gathered from the expertise, experience, and original studies of Kathleen G. Nadeau (Clinical Psychologist and nationally known specialist on attentional learning disabilities). Introducing readers to an intelligent and informed presentation of the difficulties involved in the process of post-secondary schooling for troubled students, Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD nicely educates its readers on just how to find the most suitable college, how to build a productive and positive relationship with professors, mastering the total utilization of the support and services and accommodations provided, how to select and schedule the desired courses, choosing a major and prospective career, and how to manage time properly in order to get everything done and still have personal time. Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD is very strongly recommended as essential for all aspiring college students with ADHD or any other form of learning disabilities for its precision and detail concerning the college classroom experience and how to make the most of it.

Not bad but really more geared for high school students planning on and in the progress of applying and planning for college. Some sparse info for he college student.

I loved this book. Large print, small sections of reading, and great ideas. It's already been a lifesaver!

This fully updated second edition of Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD is an outstanding compendium of explanation and advice gathered from the expertise, experience, and original studies of Kathleen G. Nadeau (Clinical Psychologist and nationally known specialist on attentional learning disabilities). Introducing readers to an intelligent and informed presentation of the difficulties involved in the process of post-secondary schooling for troubled students, Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD nicely educates its readers on just how to find the most suitable college, how to build a productive and positive relationship with professors, mastering the total utilization of the support and services and accommodations provided, how to select and schedule the desired courses, choosing a major and prospective career, and how to manage time properly in order to get everything done and still have personal time. Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD is very strongly recommended as essential for all aspiring college students with ADHD or any other form of learning disabilities for its precision and detail concerning the college classroom experience and how to make the most of it.

This fully updated second edition of Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD is an outstanding compendium of explanation and advice gathered from the expertise, experience, and original studies of Kathleen G. Nadeau (Clinical Psychologist and nationally known specialist on attentional learning disabilities). Introducing readers to an intelligent and informed presentation of the difficulties involved in the process of post-secondary schooling for troubled students, Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD nicely educates its readers on just how to find the most suitable college, how to build a productive and positive relationship with professors, mastering the total utilization of the support and services and accommodations provided, how to select and schedule the desired courses, choosing a major and prospective career, and how to manage time properly in order to get everything done and still have personal time. Survival Guide For College Students With ADHD Or LD is very strongly recommended as essential for all aspiring college students with ADHD or any other form of learning disabilities for its precision and detail concerning the college classroom experience and how to make the most of it.

This is a great book, not just for Asperger Syndrome. It relates and explains all of the sensory systems really well and in easy to understand terms.

I like how this book breaks down each sensory area and identifies it with a sensory character to help you navigate through the book. I really liked the "Incident, Interpretation & Intervention" table that walks you through many different specific sensory issues to help offer advice in addressing issues that arise. Offers strategies. I found the book quite insightful. Joanna Keating-Velasco, Author, A Is For Autism, F Is for Friend

This book brings to mind June Carter Cash's beautiful, fair-minded statement to husband Johnny Cash: "I'll meet you halfway." A more fair and loving statement has yet to be made.

I did feel it was helpful in many respects. It is good to get the voice of a man who has intimate, personal knowledge of a/A and explaining some of the sensory issues that accompany this neurobiological condition. Since people on the a/A spectrum are expected to make concessions to the NT world just to get along socially, it is nice to have books like this that provide explanations of what people with autism contend with. The world is for everyone and not just for the NT population. Shore does a good job of encouraging NT and a/A to meet one another halfway. This is about cooperation.

I am an adult with Aspergers and bought the book after reading the great reviews here. Although it is a good book that shows some aspects of the Aspergers world to outsiders, for us who live and swim in it, this was an unsatisfying book. It merely scratches the surface of our world. Buy it if you want just a glimpse in.

This book brings a much more detailed perspective on early adult life on the autistic spectrum than many others. The fact that it is looking at AS through a man's eyes is also worth noting. The author touchs on career choice issues that many with AS have agonised over. To disclose or not to disclose being the Big Question. I won't spoil your reading by recounting the author's experiences.

The book describes 'relationships' in candid AS terms. There is a huge amount here for researchers and professionals to dwell on. However, the book is not a guidebook for managing relationships better (or even getting into them) and a crucial metacommentary on events in the book is largely absent.

Overall I enjoyed this book. Most readers will find the latter half of the book dealing with college and adult life more revealing than the first half, in my opinion. The book presents AS in sharp tones on occasion. It is a 'warts and all' narrative, but I highly recommend reading it.

Assessing Learners with Special Needs is a great text to learn more about the assessment of students with special needs. It includes information on different types of assessments and how to use assessment information in decision making. Also includes information on young children and transition. Keep in mind though it is on the assessment of STUDENTS!

I ordered textbooks for a friend for his class at UMKC. I had the book within a week.

I found this book to be redundant of all of the classes I had already taken. However, if you are taking the Praxis in Special Education, there are a lot of things you will find in this book to help you. I read it before I took the exam. It was easy for me to read, but I think it was also do to the fact that I learned everything in another course.

In my class it wasn't even required because he goes over everything in lecture, plus the class is about actually giving assessments.

If you buy the book, don't worry about its condition as long as you can read it!

This book was assigned by my Grad Instructor and it has really helped me grasp the world of Assessments. Thank you.

Most special education teachers only see the end product of assessments done by school psychologists. This book helps you understand the numbers and what they represent when looking at a evalutation team report. This book helps you to write more effective IEPs and plan remediation for appropriate areas of weakness and capitalize on strengths.

I've never read a book by people with Down Syndrome before, and haven't gotten to meet many people with Down Syndrome either, so it was a real pleasure to get to meet and understand what these two young men are thinking and feeling on a variety of topics from having Down Syndrome, school and interacting with others, what their dreams are for their future, how they feel about women, marriage, and children, etc.

It was a hard book to sit down and read front to back because the book was structured as a series of quotes from both boys or conversations between them and their family members, and also because the way they phrase things is different from what I am used to, so I instead enjoyed reading a few chapters a day.

I was a little taken aback at some of Jason's attitudes towards women at that time, but I appreciate that he was a high school student at that time and may have matured in his viewpoints since then - I know I am very different from when I was a high-schooler! People with strong religious convictions may prefer to read this book before handing it off to their teen with DS, since the views are largely secular.

This was a valuable and unique look inside the heads of two strong young men who are working hard to be accepted and beloved contributors to society, and I am so glad they wrote this book to share their thoughts with us.

I read this book when my son was just a baby, and I was still full of misconceptions and misunderstandings about Down syndrome. The story of these two young men, told in their own words, did more to help me begin to envision a life full of hope and potential for my baby than any other book I'd read. I want to thank them for helping me learn, and grow as a person, and be a better mother to my own son.

I read this when my son was a baby and the book was new. I couldn't relate to ANYTHING about these boys lives. As a woman, I just couldn't relate to their male view of the world. We did not share any interests either. This book might be more appreciated by an adult male relative, professional, or family friend, but I wouldn't recommend it for a teen. It is nice that these two boys with DS are so capable, but their book would be more interesting for someone that shared their viewpoint and/or interests. If you are a woman, read something more uplifting.

This is a book written in their own words by two young men who have Down's Syndrome. They share the ups and down's of their lives . Although my son is only nine, I found this book very helpful because it gave me some preview of things to come. Because the book was written in the boys' own words, it gives a unique picture into the minds and lives of older children with Down syndrome. It also gave some insight into familiar problems, as well as some events that were unique to these boys who authored the book. I found myself wishing that my own son had a close friend to help guide him through the ups and downs that await him in his teenage years. Then I realised that I could actively seek out peers for him to become friendly with at my local Down syndrome chapter, and maybe I could find some friends that he could become close with in a similar fashion to the authors of this book. I highly recommend this book to all parents, caregivers, teachers and other professionals who work with children who have disabliities similar to Down Syndrome, because the experiences of these boys could cover a broad spectrum of disabilities, not only Down Syndrome. So many books are written from an outsider's prespective. This book comes straight from the sourcel.

i think this book should go to individuals to learn about issues that might be dealing with. these two advocates have learned a lot and how their parents has taught them i think i definitively recommend this book to go to many libraries and bookstores so that other men can learn how to do things on their own just like any other men. i am a women and i have down syndrome to i have read this it made me realize that having down syndrome is a celebration

This book is a sequel to Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere, and makes more sense in that context.

This book has moments I was really glad to see written about. The author describes seeing autistic people forced into an act of normality, with their teachers ignoring their real selves. I also liked the descriptions of acquiring tinted glasses and meeting a local autistic teenager. There were many scenes scattered through the book that I am glad I read about, and I liked the first part where the author said she'd been a nobody nowhere and a somebody somewhere but now wanted to be an anybody anywhere, and her friend said "You blew that in a big way."

Unfortunately, the bulk of the book revolves around a number of dead ends and convoluted paths the author stumbles into when attempting to live her life as herself rather than a bunch of characters and compulsive facades. It gives the impression that she is stumbling around in the dark, going the wrong way often, and describing every wrong turn in minute detail. She describes resisting her compulsive "defenses" by doing the opposite of what they want (with the predictable result that she ends up not much freer for doing that), and forcing herself to the point of complete physical immobility by trying to go back into her childhood to find a point where she was not using echo to move or speak.

She does these things along with her autistic housemate (who becomes her husband after the results of a "checking" ritual tell them both that they want to marry each other), and I think from experience that this whole section of the book should come with a warning label along the lines of, "Autistic people: Don't try this at home." The author does notice at some point that she may be leading autistic people down a misguided path, but most of the book does not show a lot of critical thinking in this regard. It's rarely stated clearly which things are mistakes and which things are good ideas, but an overlarge portion of the book is dedicated to an excruciatingly detailed account of false starts, false successes, and unsuccessful-sounding attempts to deal with compulsions.

again, Donna Williams takes us through the eyes of an autistic person. Shes amazing, but you should read Nobody Nowhere first, because that is the stroy of her life, and it might help you understand this book more.

Autistic author Donna Williams never knew what it was to feel her hand and her leg at the same time let alone experience herself and other person within one moment of processing. Nor did she know the difference between real felt communication and the push button learned 'talking doll' responses and charicatures that made up almost all of her so called 'purposeful' communication and actions with others.

Now, in her new relationship with Ian, an Asexual man with 'multiple personalities' and somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum, finding out what is real from what is not becomes their life's quest.

With hilarious and reckless results 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-endorsed robotic facades and socially reinforced learned charicatures.

Like chainsaws in the rainforest of their lives, they pledge to follow through at all costs with what they find are their real wants and likes. The results are that they throw out much of the household furniture, their clothes, the contents of the cupboards and then realise they want to be married (but fail to check that it is actually to each other!) so, within a two week very Autistic marriage preparation, they recklessly marry one another!

Intertwined with their hilarious and surreal story is the story of their friendship with Alex, a functionally non-verbal teenager who knows all about being rather multiple, Autistic and out of control of one's own appearance, utterances and actions. Alex has just managed to communicate for the first time in his life through typing and afraid of being left behind by his reckless friends, he pleads movingly with great power and beauty through this only voice he has, not to be left behind. Along the way Donna, Ian and Alex all journey into the world of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and discover the world beyond visual fragmentation, meaning blindness, face blindness and fragmented bodies as they see each other and the world as cohesive, whole and three dimensional for the first time.

You will laugh and you will cry, you will cringe and you will cheer your way through Like Color To The Blind.

Before I read this book I didn't know anything about autism, and I didnt even realize what the auther's mental condition was until a fair way into the book. I happened to pick up this book at the library (catchy title, I guess), and loved it. This is not so much a story about autism, but rather a painfully personal account of the difficulties involved in sharing a life with another human being.

"Like Color to the Blind" is the third book by Donna Williams, after "Nobody Nowhere" and "Somebody Somewhere" but it could easily stand by itself. Donna, who is autistic, puts forth an amazing effort to break through the socially acceptable masks that she had grown in order to relate to society. She is in a relationship with a man who has similar problems, and they help each other as much as they can. A very important part of this book is the account of Irlen filters, tinted lenses that reduce the many symptoms of visual overload. Anyone who has thought about obtaining these lenses should read this, as it is a very eloquent account of these problems and their disappearance. The author, though going through understandable rough periods, seems to put all of her free effort into retaining who she is. I could use any number of cliche's here (touching, great read, etc) but I will just say that I loved this book and I hope that other people will, too.