My definition of autism has evolved through my experience as an autism consultant with hundreds of children since 1997 together with my own experience as a person assessed as a psychotic infant in 1965 at age 2 and later diagnosed with autism. My definition has been captured in various ways in my 9 published books, perhaps most particularly in Autism; An Inside Out Approach and in The Jumbled Jigsaw.

In my view, autism is NOT ONE CONDITION and hence there is no one-size-fits-all approach which will best fit ALL people diagnosed with autism or ASD.

In my view, autism an UMBRELLA TERM for an ONGOING COLLECTION OF AUTISTIC RESPONSES which can be:

• Compulsive or involuntary
• Self stimulatory
• Self protective and distancing
• Distress reactions
• Result of addiction to one's own chemistry highs
• Attempts to connect and make sense of one's experiences when usual channels are emotionally, physically or otherwise developmentally blocked

Whilst we can talk of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) THERE IS NO ONE TYPE OF AUTISM because autism is like a fruit salad.

For each person diagnosed with autism the pieces in that fruit salad can be many or few, big or small, exotic or common.

When the 'fruit salad' is chronically too big for the infant to handle their development and responses take an 'AUTISTIC PATTERN'.

Among what can be underneath a label of autism or ASD can include GREATLY VARYING COMBINATIONS of any or all of the following:

• Visual, verbal and proprioperceptive Agnosias - meaning blindness, meaning deafness, body disconnectedness which can alter the learning styles available to the person with autism. So, for example someone with visual-verbal agnosia may struggle to think or learn visually or verbally but may cope well learning physically, musically or through experiencing systems of things. Agnosias can sometimes be reduced in their severity and can always be adapted to once understood.
• Often treatable gut, immune and/or metabolic disorders leading to changes in mood, anxiety, impulse control, awareness, comprehension, attention, energy levels and general information processing.
• Altered neurological integration (the links in the different functioning departments in the brain) resulting in the movement and articulation (pronunciation) disorders of Dyspraxia (clumsy child syndrome), muscle tone disorders like Dystonia (floppy child syndrome), sensory integration problems, sensory hypersensitivities and Synesthesias (sensory cross overs) and subsequent altered and often delayed information processing, all of which can be worked with constructively.
• Inherited or acquired onset of often manageable co-morbid mood, anxiety, rage, or compulsive disorders and/or attention deficits.
• Inherited or acquired often manageable tendencies to addiction which can manifest in addiction to emotional extremes and fixation on what which trigger them.

Autism and ASD may manifest in more stereotypical patterns in those with particular personality traits such as the Solitary, Idiosyncratic, Vigilant, Artistic, Conscientious, Leisurely, Devoted, Sensitive, Serious and Inventive and may be present but appear less stereotypical in other personality traits. Because of this, programs often seek to inhibit natural personality traits, confusing these with 'the autism' and further complicating the stress and confusion experienced by people with ASD.

Home, learning, employment and social environments become part of that autism fruit salad as they can be MORE or LESS:

• sensorily overwhelming
• accommodating of learning, personality, sensory-perceptual and physical (ie motor planning) differences
• empowering and patient
• emotionally overwhelming
• nutritionally or physically healthy
• informed, open minded or capable of embracing, advocating for and working constructively with diversity
• degrees of social and professional support appropriate to their needs as a family and the nature of a particular person's 'fruit salad'

What determines the abilities and progress of any person with autism, is how the fruit salad is respectfully managed based on solid understanding of those components. Some aspects of an 'autism fruit salad', in some people (and may not be present in all for them to be equally 'autistic'), will require treatment, others management, others adaptation and some only understanding, respect and acceptance.

All things grow differently depending on the interplay between their inherent nature and their environment conditions.

Donna Williams - autistic author, public speaker and autism consultant.

www.donnawilliams.net

copyright 2007, Donna Williams.