Loving Olivia

[Gardenia]

I've just ordered this book from the library and I was wondering if anyone else has read it.

 

The book is wrote by Lady Astor whose daughter Olivia has autism.

 

Gardenia

[Bagpuss]

I've not read it yet. But found this recently

 

http://www.msn.co.uk/health/autism/

 

 

Let us know what you think of the book once you've read it

[Guest flutter]

ooh this was on front of local free paper

i didnt really look maybe i should have

[BusyLizzie100]

I've read this book ( I got given a free copy). It was OK, and there were bits that really struck a chord, but it didn't hang together so well for me. It's mainly about Liz Astor's road to diagnosis for her younger daughter, Olivia, and it's amazing how many people she went through to get answers but autism came up pretty late in the game. Olivia's passiveness reminded me a lot of ds2, although he wasn't aloof like she is. She tends to generalise a bit too much for me, like saying that an autistic child can never express love or say he/she loves you, but my little lad is very loving in his own special way - hugs with him are a bit crippling because he needs to really squeeze hard to get proper feedback.

 

She also talks a bit about her other ADHD daughter, but only skims the surface of her difficulties. I also wasn't very interested in her accounts of running the London Marathon or climbing Kilimanjaro, but that's just me!

 

And although it was obviously very hard for her to find the right kind of education for her children, she was in a better position than most to pay for support and therapies and private dx etc; her children have nannies and housekeepers so really I felt her experience was pretty different to mine.

 

In all, not a patch on George And Sam.

[jb1964]

Hi,

 

I'm sure someone posted a link to an article about this recently in one of the papers (Daily Mail maybe?). It was an interesting read.

 

Take care,

Jb

[Tilly]

I've just finished reading this book. I was a bit like Busylizzie. Some things Liz Astor said are word for word which have been said by myself. Although our lifestyles are poles apart some of the things she wrote about are parallel to mine regarding the rollercoaster of emotions etc.

 

I must admit I did skip through a lot of the chapters which didn't concern Olivia.

 

Its not a book I would buy but its worth lending from the library.

 

Tilly

[stressedmumto2]

I've just finished reading this book and although I found it interesting it's not the best I've read but then that may be because my son is adhd with social impairment of autistic spectrum disorder, some things stuck out like not knowing what Olivia was meant to do when she was having a bath in the bathroom and it gave a good account of the kind of help she requires (hair washing) but alot of it was too far away from my son who is very able and that her daughter wasn't violent.

 

I think the reality of Liz's daughter could worry some people like my friend who read it as her first book and has a young son just dx with autism I only say this because all autistic children are very different and have some wonderfull qualities aswell as some equally worrying problems and I don't think that was touched on very much.

 

By the way I never skipped any of it and I think Liz has doen some wonderfull things in order to raise awareness for charities. <'>