Customer Reviews

Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories Of College Students With Autism

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An intriguing collection of essays by those on the autistic spectrum(AS). The editor has deliberately resisted overediting of the essays so the AS style of thinking and wording comes through. The writers mostly focus on their college and young adult years and the problems with finding friends and employment. Life poses many difficulties, even for higher functioning AS people with college degrees. They have academic and job skills, but the social differences pose a significant barrier.

A relative of mine found this book helpful in giving insight to how some AS people perceive and encounter the world. This book might also be helpful to AS teenagers and young adults to help them realize a commonality of experience.

I am amazed by the explosion of books on Aspergers and autistic spectrum disorders. Until recently, there were only a few books available with the "inside" perspective of autism, such as by Temple Grandin. I welcome the contribution of others' perspectives.

This is an excellent book that explains what adults with autism/Asperger's contend with. This book is composed of essays by university students who provide personal accounts of what living with autism/Asperger's means and how they have coped and made giant steps forward.

I like the passage about synesthesia, that is linked sensory modes. One contributor explains how numbers and letters have colors; henceforth the title "Aquamarine Blue 5." She explains how certain sounds can have colors; this sensory condition has until very recently received little press.

Synesthesia can take on many forms. For certain people on the a/A spectrum, synesthesia is part of the sensory package. Some people can taste and smell certain words; colors can have an auditory component and in some cases, people have reported being able to see music.

How I wish I had this book when I was a university student! This sterling gem of a book helps clarify so much of what the Autism/Asperger's experience is all about for so many people.

I wish I could rate this one even more stars. This book is truly outstanding.

This is a collection of writings by college / university students on the autistic spectrum, talking about both their challenges and their gifts, as well providing an insight into their lives. This will probably be of most use to those planning to go into higher education who might want to get a better idea of what it will be like and what situations they may face, but will be of interest to anyone who enjoys reading about the experiences of others. The only thing that disappointed me a little was that many of the contributors were studying similar courses and had similar experiences, so it didn't cover the wide range of experiences I hoped it would, but it was a good read all the same.

Since my son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome 7 years ago, I've watched the information on this issue explode. Information about adults with AS is just appearing on the market. This is one such book. Written by college students with AS, each essay contributes a unique understanding of what it means to enter adulthood with AS.

The editor, Dawn Prince-Hughes, consciously maintained the intergrity of each writer's unique style. At times the use of train of thought might be a little tricky for a neurotypical person to follow. But this is a lesson in and of itself: The person with AS has a different perspective of the world and we need to learn to embrace those differences.

Any parent with a teen with AS and any teen/college student with AS should read these first hand accounts of the lives of real people with real issues.

As one of the contributors to Aquamarine Blue 5, I know employment is a not only a matter of difficulty for people with Asperger syndrome, it is frequently a matter of sheer injustice.

The movie Independence Day strikes such a chord with me because at one point, a B-2 stealth bomber launches a thermonuclear stand-off missile at the space ship over Houston. Except for General William Grey (Robert Loggia), the military leaders are sure they nailed it. Until the ground crew verifies that the ship's shield withstood even a nuclear warhead.

It is aggravating to throw the best you have at something like searching for a job and full adult community participation, like your mates from college and graduate school, but to be restricted from full participation. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't just fighting African American injustice. Once I was an oppressed Caucasian man.

Later, however, another solution does work to eliminate the aliens from Earth.

My story does have a happy ending. I did not get to use certain parts of my Asperger mind for the specific occupational purposes of planning and executing research studies or for multivariate analysis by computer. But I have used the same parts of my mind for identical mental tasks: planning, writing, and executing computer programs and Web pages, and the ability to handle quite a few software applications beyond SPSS, and even beyond Access: SQL Server. And it may be better paid than the first career.

There is plenty to challenge everyone with autism and Asperger. Full employment does not make that fact go away. Namely, it might be hard finding someone to share your well-earned joy and success with. And we will never completely eliminate occasional prejudice from the human race. Because challenges persist for life so must our understanding and support. Indeed, we have become more sympathetic as human beings thanks to life experience, and our life experience often helps us be thankful spiritually too.

I recommend Aquamarine Blue 5 for its emphasis on issues relevant to the young Asperger adult.

This book contains about a dozen essays written by high-functioning autistic people who have made it to the university level of education. These are their stories, and, as the editor makes clear, she spent little time in editing them -- confining herself basically to grammar issues. "Normal" People who deal with autistics are always wondering what's it like for them in our society and this book makes it clear how difficult it is.

Only the highest-functioning autistic people will make it to a university and that population is the one that is addressed by this book. The editor is herself autistic but has received her Ph.D. and is a professor at a university. So, the message is that autistic people can "make it" in "normal" society but it is not easy. Her essay concludes the book and describes her own personal journey to get to where she is.

When autism is mentioned, the image that frequently arises is of the person who is non-communicative, withdrawn into their own world and perhaps makes noises or weird motions. But there is another stereotype that can come into play. This being "the absent-minded professor." in this stereotype the person is frequently so engrossed in their affairs or research that they do not wear the latest fashions, may have unique eating and hygiene habits, and are frequently seen meandering around with a lost look on their faces. I have known such university professors as academia seems to both draw them in and nourish their mental needs. This stereotype also describes people who are on the autism spectrum. Today, many younger people are diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome who show such traits.

So, there is a place for high-functioning autistic people in such places. Areas where they can contribute significantly to society even if "normal" society considers them strange. A place where they are not seen as abnormal but are tolerated in a very fond way.

In this book, we hear the personal recollections of twelve students as to their roads to get to a university and even graduate from it with degrees. In every one of the stories, the elementary and high school experiences are described as absolutely rotten. Which points out how bad their experiences are with the "normal" members of society. It is not hard to envision and even feel the sadness of these teens as they are ostracized and picked upon due to their unique habits and needs.

Not all the stories have a happy ending. Several of the essays in the book show that some of the autistic people retreat into their own worlds and shut down from the rest of the world. Even though that is a small portion of the essays given here, I believe those essays probably represent the majority of autistic people who attempt university. And, conversely, the majority of the essays represent the minority of the people. But, even given that, it was encouraging to read about the sometimes heroic struggles that these people went through and to realize how much they accomplished in a world and society that is not set up for them.

This is a good book to read if you are involved with autistic children and wonder what will happen to them once they are past the stage where the state and family try to cater to their every need. It points out one desireable path that they can take in which they will end up accepted and even welcomed as productive components of society. For that reason, this is a recommended read.

I would suggest that anyone that has friends/relatves that has Autism or AS to read this book. This book provides an insight into the world of Autism and AS in adults. So much is written about children with Autism. This book focuses on adults.

This book is edited by Dawn Prince-Hughes, whom in my opinion is a great author. I read her book "Songs of the Gorilla Nation" and that book was a breath of fresh air.

This book will give the reader many different views on Autism and AS. I have several favorite chapters. (Each chapter is written by different people, telling his or her own story of what it is like to have Autism). Some stories are short (3-4 pages) while others are very detailed and long (20-30 pages).

Even if you have an interest in Autism or AS, read this book. You will not be sorry!

This book was recommended to me by a councilor and has helped me to understand others as well as myself better.

Before I retired from the faculty of a mid-sized state university, I taught statistics, research methods, and the sociology of schooling under the auspices of the university's College of Education. During my twenty-three years of teaching, I worked with a fairly large number of students who had been labeled Learning Disabled, but only two who had been diagnosed with Asberger's Syndrome, one male and one female. The students with Asberger's Syndrome were far and away the most capable, easily matching or surpassing the academic performance of the neurotypical students in my classes.

For the most part, the authors of the extremely interesting essays reported in Aquamarine Blue 5 seem too be further along the Autism Spectrum Scale than the two Asberger's Syndrome students whom I taught. The female student was a bit shy but not socially awkward. The papers she wrote for my graduate class in research methods were well organized and carefully researched, but not in a rigid or unduly narrowly focused way. She occasionally, in a very soft-spoken manner, participated in class discussions, especially those that were off topic. She had a low-key but quite suitable way of responding with smiles and muted laughter to jokes, typically lame ones, told my me or by her fellow students. My initial response to the young woman was that she had either been erroneously labeled as having Asberger's Syndrome, or that her symptoms were naturally quite mild.

Now, however, having read Aquamarine Blue 5, I wonder how much of her apparent equanimity may have been due to a constant and taxing struggle to normalize her behavior. Perhaps she really was as relaxed and comfortable as she seemed. But it never occurred to me to ask, nor did I find it unusual that she attended more closely to the notes she was taking, looking down at her notebook more than the other students. She was not noticeably averse to eye contact, nor did she seem absorbed in reverie unrelated to what was going on in class. She was studious, a bit self-contained, and paid close attention. Really just a variation on the theme presented by the other students.

In another section of the same graduate research methods class, I had an Asberger's Syndrome student who was working on a master's degree in social science. I had met him the summer before, during a time when he typically appeared disheveled, wearing shorts that seemed dangerously brief given his corpulent body, and he was quite literal minded and formal. As such, he more closely approximated the students presented in Aquamarine Blue 5. In contrast to most of them, however, he took quickly to tips on more suitable dress and grooming, and he seemed to relax and become less literal in his speech when it was suggested that he do so and as he became more familiar with the faculty and students.

In class, he was an outspoken, sometimes almost raucous, leader of discussions of pertinent material with which the other students were not familiar. He seemed to enjoy give and take with the instructor, and he knew and used inside jokes peculiar to the social sciences. He was also aware that being fifty pounds overweight diminished his chances of being attractive to female students, something that he wanted to be, and he occasionally lost substantial amounts of weight, only to rather quickly gain it back.

If he had an obsessive concern, it was anticipating being able to secure employment as a social scientist. He worked for a time with with a government agency, but found the pace stressful. The last I heard he was designing web sites.

I recall being told by faculty members and students that he had spent a good deal of time trying to find out why his social skills were in some ways unusual and off-putting. At one point he concluded that, since his mother was a heavy drinker, he was probably suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. However, when a firm diagnosis of Asberger's Syndrome was made by the University Health Services, he was relieved, even joyful. At last he knew what made him distinctive.

The case studies reported in Aquamarine Blue 5 bring to mind the two Asberger's Syndrome students I taught. Since the symptoms reported in Aquaramarine Blue 5 are more marked and troublesome than those experienced by my students, I think the Aquamarine Blue 5 case studies are especially valuable. They provide what might best be termed ethnographies or participant-observation studies of the self for Asberger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism students. As such, they alert us to the persistent and arduous struggles, often skillfully hidden, endured by these students in trying to adjust to the neurotypical world. Again, I may have completely missed this when I judged my Asberger's syndrome students to be well adjusted and comfortable.

As ethnographies of the self, the case studies reported in Aquamarine Blue 5 bring to mind another book written using the same method. In Before It Had a Name, Jacqueline Barry documents her life-long struggle with bipolar disorder. She provides insights into the experience of living with this disease that otherwise simply would not be available. I think her approach is of even greater value with Autism Spectrum Disorders, including Asberger's Syndrome, because the symptoms are so varied and unusual from one person to another, and because they are often sharply at odds with the everyday experience of those of us who are neurotypicals. How many of us can imagine numbers and letters having intrinsic colors and textures? How many of us, when under stress, see objects in our visual field become smaller but at the same time more sharply focused? How many of us would completely lose our ability to do keyboarding on our own familiar personal computer if the walls in the room in which it was located were repainted a different color?

I learned a great deal from reading Aquamarine Blue 5, and I wish I had not been so woefully ignorant when I had students with Asberger's Syndrome. The struggles they endured maintaining the appearance of being comfortable and untroubled may have been enormous. The essays they wrote may have taken much more time and effort to complete than I ever suspected. With more ethnographies of the self such as those reported in Aquamarine Blue 5, instructors and others who work with people who have Autism Spectrum Disorders may gradually begin doing a better job. We may even be able to work with our neurologically atypical associates to make best use of the unusual capabilities that sometimes are part and parcel of their unique ways of dealing with the world.