‘When I met Stella Waterhouse I was, on reflection, surprised, that a non-autistic, so called, professional had ideas about autism which seemed so much closer to an autistic perspective than can be said for many others. Generally, professionals view autism as a collection of symptoms, generally overlooking the place of those symptoms within the autistic system of functioning and so, too, they miss the language of autism and what it is trying to tell the non-autistic world. ……. Stella’s somewhat anthropological approach attempts to use a refreshingly an inside-out approach instead of the usual outside-in one which relies on description of symptoms rather than the experience of those symptoms.
Stella takes the loose ends of sensory and perceptual, cognitive, anxiety, self control and biochemistry problems traces them back to the spool from which these seemingly disconnected tangles came from. In this, she has a holistic approach to the understanding of autism, something sadly lacking in most professional literature on the subject.'
Foreword to A Positive Approach to Autism by Donna Williams
REVIEWS
This is indeed a very positive book by Stella Waterhouse, who has spend many years teaching children with learning disabilities and emotional problems, but after providing residential care and training to teenagers with autism, she began research that resulted in this publication. . . .
The argument of the book is that children with autism are not mentally handicapped, but rather normal children, whose problems leave them isolated and unable to express or understand even their own feelings due to a special response to anxiety. An interesting review for parents or professionals working with autism.
Professor Joav Merrick, MD, DMSc
Amazon.co.uk
By A Customer
Review of: A Positive Approach to Autism (Paperback)
I love this book. I'd recommend it to any parent of an autistic child, or anyone working with autistic children or adults. If you have been dealing with the "system" for any period of time you may have a somewhat negative view of your child's behaviour. You may feel that everything they do is strange and unusual and not quite right. In this book Stella Waterhouse describes how she sees autism as a very natural reaction to an unusual situation. She describes the sensory problems in detail and invites us to imagine what our response may be if we were to find ourselves in such a situation. Current theories on the biomedical causes of autism are clearly explained. In addition the book details the role of anxiety in autism and in other related disorders. Highly recommended.