Full Description
The Scale of the Spectrum is an accessible collection of 'story pairs' exploring the commonality of autistic experience. Each story pair tells an account of an autistic person with high support needs and/or their behaviour being misunderstood, alongside an experience of an autistic person with low support needs. Their stories are organised in two sections. In the first, understanding of an autistic person with high support needs is discovered through the experience of a person with low support needs; in the second, an autistic person with low support needs comes to better understand their experience by relating to a person with high support needs. The contributors discuss diverse challenges including food, communication, time management, pain, sensory overwhelm and mental health. Throughout the book, the contributors argue for a unity of overall autistic experience and ask the question of if people at 'opposite' ends of the autism spectrum are really so different from each other.
Contents
Introduction
How this book works
The Lancet move
Orientation notes
Meet the people
Understanding other people's experience
Jenny and Jo - timetable troubles
Danny and Anne - eating anxiety
Edith and Iona - exhaustion and emotions
Raphael and Jo - survival and self-injury
Eliza and Sara - fullness of attention
Ahmed and Kim - sharing passions
Alex and Helen - focus and burnout
David and Claire (and Lee) - passion for music
Ahkil and Jo - expressing things differently; words, conversations, considerations, metrics
Liam and Hat - listening to silence
Alex and Claire - use your words
Duncan and Tigger - a safe space
Jack and Jo - laconic kindness
Marking the Midpoint: Denial, creation, categorisation, human?
Understanding ourselves
Jenny, George and Eddie - living authentically
Hannah and Gerard - a mix of understanding
Julia and Bilal - dazzling reflections
Gerard and Stan - sharing understanding
Tom and Tigger and their Togs; Nickie, Mia and Gabriel
Tigger and Leo - getting things in order
Jo and Julan - multiple transitions
Lisa and Oscar - finding sanctuary
Lynn and Poppy - an ADHD understanding
Conclusion
Afterword
