: Virginia Sta Maria
: Aspirations My Adventures with Autism
: Vivid Publishing
: 9781923078734
: Aspirations
: 1
: CHF 9.40
:
: Klinische Fächer
: English
: 200
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
'At the age of 49, after years of wondering why I didn't fit in with the rest of the world, I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. As I learned about the world of Autism Spectrum Disorder, I discovered I had a lifetime of experiences and knowledge I could share. I wrote and designed this book so that it is easy to read, and to help people understand some of the day-to-day experiences of living - and learning to thrive - with autism.' With endorsements and accolades from experts in the fields of mental health and Autism Spectrum Disorder, this unique collection of Virginia's real-life stories is designed for those who don't like to look at long, dense sequences of words. Virginia's expressive, funny illustrations and bullet points of text take you on a journey without all the jargon, relating her experiences in a deceptively simple style that will have you laughing, crying and at times recognizing 'Hey, I do that.' Whether you're on the spectrum or not, or just unsure and wondering what's going on for you, there is much in this book about 'human' for all readers.

Virginia Sta Maria lives in Perth, Western Australia. She is married with one son and two adult stepchildren and has been an advocate for neurodivergent people since 2014. She was part of the founding team for the Autism Academy for Software Quality Assurance (AASQA) at Curtin University, where she and her husband Oliver served as advisory board members for many years. Virginia was involved in the support and preservation of the Curtin Specialist Mentoring Program (CSMP), the university's neurodivergent mentoring program. With Oliver and their son, Aaron, Virginia was involved in many PhD research projects and twice invited as a guest speaker at the university's Autism Open Days. Virginia and Oliver were regular contributors to the Curtin Autism Research Group and the university's professional development sessions. This is Virginia's first book. She plans to continue developing ways to support neurodivergent people and educate the non-neurodivergent by sharing her remarkable life experiences, achievements and humour.

1

VERY IMPORTANT STUFF

• Asperger’s

• The Brain

• The Bad Pages

• I Choose

• Hyperthymesia

• Salty

• Too Much Information

• Psychologists

Asperger’s

• Asperger’s Syndrome was once a sub-category of Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) along with Autistic Disorder and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified.

• Since 2013, the official diagnostic criteria for PDD changed, i.e., all the subcategories were replaced by one single diagnostic term – Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The term Asperger’s Syndrome is no longer used.

• How I see Asperger’s:

• Asperger’s is in my family - my dad, my brother, my son Aaron, and me.

• I operate from a logical intelligence. My ways can look weird, but doing what others do is not logical to me.

• I need to learn social skills; they don’t come naturally. Socialising is work for me.

• I watch people and learn but I make my own decisions about what to do. I don’t live by social norms and don’t follow others’.

• I need lots of time out because the outside world is so unpredictable, confusing, and therefore tiring.

• I can be childlike, naïve, and trusting.

• I have special skills: memory, singing, psychic abilities.

• I live by black and white, love and hate, strong comparisons.

• I have a great sense of humour.

• I have amazing organising skills and love things to be in order.

• I don’t like change; I like life to be predictable.

• I am emotional and super aware. I use my emotions fully.

• Aspergians’ brains are wired up to be more aware and sensitive to our surroundings. All my senses are heightened.

The Brain

• My way of looking at the brain is that an artistic person has more electrical impulses (wires) going into the right side of the brain and a logical person has more wires going into the left side of the brain.

• If an artistic person wants to be better at maths, they can learn, they just place the numbers into a visual pattern. When you practice the visual pattern over and over you then make new wires into the maths (left) side of the brain.

• The same is for the front/social part of the brain. Aspergian people need to learn social lessons and then there will be more wires made into the front of the brain.

• Once you learn a process, practice it and practice it, and make those wires.

• Aspies can learn to socialise with a logical brain, not a social brain.

The Bad Pages

I will keep the bad news to these few pages. They don’t have any boxes or bullet points. I like to keep the boxes and bullet points for the good pages.

Dad — my father was born in England and placed into an orphanage at birt