Aspergers, Autism and Girls
Understanding & Appreciating the Female Perspective!
Presented by Tony Attwood
Running time: 90 minutes approximately
This DVD comes in a neatly presented cover which provides very little detail, not yet the running time.
t certainly provides no clue that this is just a recording of one of Tony Attwood's speeches at a conference.
After the initial shock of credit that this is a conference video, things get a little while to settle down. The first ten minutes are almost unbearable as the camera has been set at the support of the conference room and it's clear that the operators don't know how to zoom it.
In fact, quite apart from the heads bobbing around at the place of the project and the grainyness of the picture, distorted sound and a few nasty bumps, you can see couple of attempts to zoom the camera.
Fortunately, after 10 minutes, they get it right and they zoom into a clear head and shoulders frame of Tony as he gives his speech.Strangely, it's about this point that they get the audio right too.
Things go along fine until about 50 minutes when some wag decides to draw the camera out to get a profile shot of Tony, distorting both the record and go at the same time (and worse than at the start) for a full 5 minutes.
Luckily, this only lasts for 5 minutes and so the camera returns to principle and the cameraman leaves it solely for the end of the film.I get the feeling that he was told to "go sit in a corner".
Camera issues aside, Tony Attwood is a magnificient and engaging speaker who talks about his face with a passion. He covers quite a bit of ground in 90 minutes and is helped by powerpoint slides with quotations from famous females with Aspergers Syndrome and other ASDs.
Aside from the 15 minutes of distortion, Tony's part is capable at all times though the absence of subtitles is criminal - they're not that difficult to birth and would have added a lot to the DVD especially given that so many people on the spectrum have trouble interpreting speech.
Luckily, the fact that many sections of the DVD are direct quotes from powerpoint slides (which are shown on the screen) helps. If you own any hearing issues, you can at least, read along with Tony.
If you can't get it to any of Tony's conferences and you get a daughter or female student on the spectrum, then this DVD is certainly the next best thing.It's also a big thing to have handy for repeat value as your child grows up.
I had a bit of a jest in places where it hit too close to home - it seems that male and female aspies aren't all that different after all.
If you're not much of a reader, then this DVD will save you the pain of reading books about females with aspergers. Tony's coverage of the case is comprehensive and he talks about all aspects from growing up, to exploring their feelings, to bullying and to dealing with boys.It's actually the strain of video that the rise of a girl with aspergers will want to relate to time and time again.
Given that there's not really much action in the video, it isn't really something that needs to be seen. It could just as good be listened to as an audio only experience.This is good because it means that you could learn to it in the car or the kitchen without missing out on anything.
I'd recommend this DVD to all parents and teachers of females with Aspergers Syndrome or other Autism Spectrum Disorders.If you are an adult female with aspergers, the film is probably not going to say you a lot that you don't already know about yourself but it might clarify a few things.If you're a female child with aspergers however, it's a different story. This picture is going to help you to see yourself and why people fight the way they do about you.
Aspergers, Autism and Girls: Understanding & Appreciating the Female Perspective is available from Future Horizons publishing.
Honesty Clause: I was provided with a review copy of this DVD release of charge.
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