I go past labels and symptoms to the ingredients, the foundations, and what that means for the systems at work, the experiences of the person and their own natural motivations and distresses. This holistic way of working applies to people on the autism spectrum as much as it applies to those who are not. This can also be a great awakening for those struggling to understand themselves and may help professionals, families and partners feel they now really know and understand the person they are working with so much better.

• Face to face consultations in my Melbourne consulting room are $60 AUD.
• Home visits in the Melbourne metropolitan area are $80 AUD 

Face to face consultations are from my consulting room in Melbourne's South East

I do travel to consult at schools, employment services, day care centres, social services and residential care services.

I do home visits in Melbourne with those who have already been to see me.  (This allows families to have fathers, grandparents, aides, teachers present who might otherwise be unable to make it to a consultation.  It also allows for assessments of the environment from a sensory perceptual, learning and motivation perspective).

If you are outside of Melbourne, interstate or overseas, you or your service provider can arrange with me a time-meet up for live video consultations via Skype. 

• Children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families.
• Parents who want a consultation for themselves
• Post graduate students seeking to better understand particular clients or autism in general.
• Couples where one partner is on the spectrum.
• Those without formal diagnosis on the spectrum who feel affected by related issues.

To contact Donna about a face to face consultation you can click here to send an email.

You tell me the problem and I seek to work out which underlying causes are most likely at work and advise you/train you in the related strategies.

Reviews are like looking past the fruit bowl (the label) to getting a really clear understanding of the fruit salad (what's beyond that label).

Reviews are for those who want something more fitting than a hit and miss 'one size fits all approach'.

A review explores implications of:

• health issues
• information processing
• anxiety
• mood
• compulsive disorders
• personality and identity
• environment
• "baggage"
• distress/pleasure patterns (which taps into aversion/motivation patterns)
• goals

Any of these things would alter the approaches and treatments for each person, giving them a greater chance of reaching their potential than a "one size fits all" approach could offer.

An Indirectly Confrontational Approach may help reduce:

• Compulsive avoidance, diversion and retaliation responses of Exposure Anxiety
• Social phobia and social-emotional complications of severe face blindness
• Selective Mutism
• The disabling effects of learned helplessness
• Social and communication challenges in those with Reactive Attachment Disorder
• Oppositional Defiance Disorder and Pathological Demand Avoidance
• Turn down the volume on some forms of Personality Disorder. 

I am the author of Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage, a book outlining an Indirectly Confrontational Approach.  I have given international workshops and lectures on an Indirectly Confrontational Approach and  used it extensively in my work with people with autism.  Relationship Development Intervention (RDI), Option, Floor Time and Discovery Learning are programs which have used or been compatible with an Indirectly Confrontational Approach.

Gestural signing is

• Not Makaton
• Not deaf signing
• Not about 'waving your hands about' 

Gestural signing is a way of using movement to track the meaning of both written and spoken speech (one's own and that of others).  It is may be most useful for those with:

• 'Meaning deafness' (Auditory Verbal Agnosia/Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder)
• Difficulty gaining or holding meaning when reading (Visual Verbal Agnosia)
• Oral Dyspraxia/ Speech Apraxia 
• Selective Mutism
• Aphasia

Kinesthetic learning is hands on learning for those who learn through doing.  It is especially important for meaning deaf/meaning blind children who struggle to learn just from visuals or watching.  

Kinesthetic learning is about using touch, texture, acoustics (sounds), to explore the progression and connections between the parts of objects or their wider context.   This can help those with object blindness (who see the part, lose the whole), context blindness (inability to use context to understand objects or actions or meaning of objects), or help people with severe face blindness to recognise and connect with others.

Some people struggle to follow instructions, make mental comparisons, conclusions or choices.  This can be because they struggle to keep track of or consciously juggle complex thoughts. 

External mentalising involves using representational objects and 'mapping' to keep track of multiple concepts, to build up insight and self awareness, to understand cause and effect/consequences.

External mentalising can be used to measure and assess which feelings and relative strengths of feelings someone may be having, and to track a simultaneous sense of self and other they might otherwise never process. 

External mentalising can be used to facilitate functional speech in those unable to sequence or whose meaning gets lost in a flood of speech they can't track with meaning.  Gestural signing is also one of the tools used for external mentalising.

Discovery learning is the opportunity to directly explore the wider community, public transport, encounter others, exchange money, handle objects and generally get access to real life experiences.

Discovery learning may:

• Turn around learned helpless
• Build confidence
• Directly educate the community about it's own role in the lives of those with disabilities.

Discovery Learning involves a strong 1-1 relationship between the guide and the child.  If a child is liable to bolt, they may initially be connected to the guide by a belt or elastic yet it is the guide who is guided by the child throughout the community.  Discovery learning allows a child to kinesthetically (hand over hand) explore a world they may not have the communication to ask about or the experience to yet visually understand. 

Discovery learning allows the development of language in real life contexts and is essential for those who can't yet expand from toys and games to the real world and need experiences in the real world first to make later sense of the toys and games. 

Discovery learning is a process in which tantrums and meltdowns are managed in a neutral way, without judgement and the child is navigated through self calming processes in learning emotional self regulation.

The guide negotiates and advocates directly with those in the community in the discovery learning process.  The parent is encouraged to be present and take an active part in training to take over as the guide.

Social Emotional Agnosia is is where the brain fails to intuitively process facial expression or body language. 1-1 training can formally teach the shifts in facial expression or body language. 

I stock an autism test range of tinted lenses by a company run by Opthamologists called BPI (Brain Power International). 

BPI tinting is a fraction of the cost of Irlen lenses.  I encourage children and adults to self test and rate for themselves which tints, if any they find most effective.  This testing can done through a wide range of test situations including reading, walking through a garden, going up hill and down hill, watching traffic, watching a moving face.  Through this range of test situations the person can ascertain which ways the tints help or don't help. 

• Tinted lenses do not address sight, only visual perception (how the brain processes what's seen).
• Only those with visual perceptual disorders will find that specific tinted lenses can restore or improve visual perceptual cohesion, depth perception and the processing of a wider visual context with meaning. 
• Some people are not yet able to tolerate the degree of interaction necessary for the testing.
• Some people will not tolerate wearing glasses. 

For:

• Study skills
• Pre-employment and self employment skills
• Public speaking skills
• Writing and becoming published
• Starting a clubs or groups
• Developing self-help programs for themselves or others
• Designing sensory or learning environments
• Designing alternative communication programs

I have done counseling work with:

• Teenagers
• Functionally non-verbal people who use typed communication
• Parents dealing with grief, isolation and co-dependency
• People with identity disorders, some personality disorders or co-dependency issues
• Those in relationships with people on the autism spectrum

I help families work out which interventions are most relevant and useful at a given time based on the family's unique structure.  Where possible I may also suggest, demonstrate or train the family in alternative approaches which are ultimately low or no cost.  This is because:

• No interventions work for all people with a shared label. 
• Some interventions bring out the worst in a personality yet this may be blamed on 'the autism'. 
• Some interventions do not train or empower the carers or the person with the disability. 
• Some health interventions are assigned to those with disabilities who do not have health issues. 
• Some products and materials are not appropriate to those with sensory perceptual or cognitive differences outside of the stereotypes these products and materials are targeting.
• Significant financial burden can be put on families to adhere to approaches and products which may not be required long term, may have outgrown their usefulness, simply don't best suit their child or greatly disturb the sense of home or family life.