amazon Barnes and Noble aNobii Category:  Essays Publisher: Dancing Mind Press ISBN-10:  9781410734327 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 262 Copyright: 2003 ISBN-13: 9781410734310 A book by and about women on the autism spectrum. An insider's perspective from like-minded women who invite the reader to readtheir personal collection of true stories; which are provocative and engaging. At times funny, sad. They invite you into their worlds; and lives and they challenge you to look beyond the clinical contours of their experiences and consider what they have to say. authors: Sola Shelly Jean Kearns Miller Ava Ruth Baker Susan Golubock Patricia Clark Daina Krumins Jane Meyerding April Masilamani Kim Motola Mary Margaret Britton Yearwood Wendy Peabody Kimberly Tucker (that's me!) Coa Morgan Allgood C.J. Gail Pennington Marla Comm Toni Sano Excerpt Sample excerpt: From Jane Meyerding: Little girls...and bigger girls...are supposed to chatter and giggle and gossip and share secrets and have best friends and so on. Much of what they do together is preparation for later, when they reach the age for dating, school dances, and romance. The way they play together is partially a rehearsal for their teen years and beyond, just as other young mammals from social species (e.g., lions) play together in ways that help them develop the skills they will rely upon as adults. Little girls at play are practicing the social skills they pick up automatically from the children and adults around them, skills they will rely upon to form alliances, gain favor, avoid censure (and rejection), keep informed of important news within their social group, attract friends (and a mate), and present themselves to the various facets of the social world in the best possible light. They have fun, and they learn how to negotiate with sensitivity the relationships they establish or that are imposed upon them by circumstance...by school, by family, by community, and, eventually, by the workplace. I didn't do that. My wiring (the neurological configuration of crucial parts of my brain) didn't let me. For example, I was enrolled in a Girl Scout Camp one summer when I was about eight. I was a cheerful child from a loving home, and I generally expected the best from everyone. Going to camp every day in a nearby county park was fine with me, and I looked forward eagerly to the one night at the end of the term when, instead of going home at the end of the day, we would be camping out in tents overnight. (My family camped in a tent on vacations, so the idea was not new to me.) Every day I participated in whatever activities the staff had programmed. I learned (with greater difficulty than most) to braid a four-strand lanyard. I helped write a little song for my group (Bluebirds) to sing. I went where I was told, did what I was told to do, never objected or fussed. As far as I remember, it was only on the final night, inside the tent with the other Bluebirds, that I became aware of something odd. The other girls had become friends with one another. Alone there, with no adult present to direct us, they chatted and whispered and laughed and interacted with seamless ease. How did they know what to say? They weren't talking about anything, and yet they talked constantly. My conversation was limited to specific subjects, not including anything as nebulous as girl talk or small talk. Moreover, they seemed to know each other in a way they didn't know me...and I certainly didn't know them. I had been with them as much during the summer as they had been with each other. I had done everything they had done (as far as I could tell). And yet I was a stranger there. The only stranger in the tent. I realize now that one or more of the other little girls in that tent may not have been happy and socially successful. But all of them knew how to put on the act. They may have felt lonely. They may have felt inadequate. But they knew...even at eight years old...how to behave in a social situation. They could, and did, interact successfully, no matter what uncertainties may have lurked within. They knew how to be little girls together, whereas I had no idea what to do at all. I was frozen and silent not because I was shy or scared but because I literally had no idea what words to say, no idea how to move or when to move. It was as if everyone else had studied a script and learned their parts beforehand. In fact, of course, they were improvising brilliantly, thanks to the social code capacity programmed into their brains and to the natural ease with which they acquired their gender identity from the culture around them. My classmates in third grade played a game I didn't understand. It involved the girls running away from the boys. I could see that, but I didn't understand why, nor could I figure out the rules. When I tried to join in by imitating, it didn't work. I didn't know how to shriek properly, nor did I want to (it hurt my ears), but I considered myself pretty good at running. The trouble was that nobody chased me. It was a relief when I fell down a hill and cut my legs all up. That accident, and the subsequent discovery that I was allergic to the antiseptic the nurse applied, gave me an excuse to give up that game. I often thought back to it in later years, however, whenever all the girls and boys around me became engaged in some mysterious interaction I couldn't understand. The consistent element (besides my lack of comprehension) that reminded me of my third grade failure was that nobody ever chased me. Whatever the chancing analogue might be at any given time, I was exempted from it by a silently arrived at but universal consensus among my age peers. They tended to detour around me as if I were a tree or a boulder in their midst. Apparently I was as alien to them as they were to me, probably because I was a dead zone in terms of social signals. I neither responded to the non-verbal signals they were sending out nor initiated any of my own.

By Suz "treadingwater"

This fascinating collection of writings by autistic women is perhaps the best value read for women wanting to find out what they have in common with others on the spectrum, but could still be interesting for anyone wanting to get an insight. Sharing experiences, feelings, conversations, and poetry in a frank and thought provoking way, this book has a charming and refreshing honesty that perhaps autistic people are best capable of and most likely to appreciate. I really enjoyed this book and found it to be a very worthwhile read.