For the purchase of several titles, please contact the secretariat:
3484161819 it**@it*********.it
Autism: studying, working, socialising...
The experience and strategies devised by an autistic person, who has turned his limitations into potential
Lorenzo J.S. | Andrea F. Mazzola
Preface by Raffaella Faggioli
This book recounts the strategies developed by the author since his teenage years to overcome the difficulties he faced as a person with autistic functioning, which he has extensively documented in thousands of pages in both words and pictures.
Thanks to these solutions, he was able to have a fulfilling life, a job, a family life, excellent results in the professional sphere and also satisfying social relationships.
Although the set of difficulties faced are typical for an autistic person, many of them are also present in the lives of neuro-typical persons.
The solutions described here can therefore be useful for a wide range of individuals, both autistic and neurotypical, who may have particular problems:
- in relating to other people
- organising one's time
- to set and achieve goals
as well as to those - family members, caregivers, educators and teachers, personnel managers - who have to deal with autistic persons.
Understanding how an autistic person thinks, what difficulties he or she faces, what strategies an autistic person can implement independently, can help both to better understand the behaviour of individuals and to integrate these strategies into the tools one already has at one's disposal.
In his introduction, Dr. Mazzola, in the light of his clinical experience with autistic persons, explains more analytically the content of the text and its value and usefulness.
It is not an autobiographical book, although it does contain autobiographical references, but it is aimed at giving concretely applicable suggestions, and in this sense, it is decidedly innovative and finds few similar works, particularly in the Italian context.
The book does not describe abstract concepts, but through text and pictures, real strategies applied in the field, which have yielded concrete results.
Such strategies can be used by both autistic and neurotypical persons.
Moreover, the book not only describes the strategies adopted, but also the path that led to their elaboration, a path that can be followed by others or that can be suggested by educators and therapists to their patients, autistic or not.
The final chapter deals with 'bureaucratic' aspects, also in the light of the new disability decree, related to being autistic such as the possible process of diagnosis, certifications, applying for disability, driving licence, finding a job, which services can be accessed, always considering, the authors' lived experience.
Lorenzo J.S.
A high-functioning autistic person, he has been engaged for years in personal research aimed at identifying and applying strategies to overcome the limitations of his way of being, turning these limitations into opportunities.
This has enabled him to achieve outstanding results in both the professional and personal spheres.
However, Lorenzo did not just use the results of his research in practice, but documented them in hundreds of pages. This book constitutes a synthesis of them.
Lorenzo has over the years carried out various activities to raise awareness on the topic of autism:
- since 2013, participates in Dr. Raffaella Faggioli's patients' meeting group, a group initially created as part of a project to make a documentary on autism, told from the side of the protagonists
- In 2014, he published, in collaboration with Dr Raffaella Faggioli, the book Inside Autism (FrancoAngeli)
- in 2014, drafted one of the opening texts of the International Conference on Autism The Person with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Animating Hope (The Person with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Animating Hope), held in the Vatican and promoted by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers
- In 2015, he participated in the Radio della Svizzera Italiana programme Autism. How one can intervene, Thousandths
- in 2022 he was a testimonial in the training project promoted by the Lombardy Region for health care workers in the framework of the AUTER project.
- in 2022 participated as a volunteer in a study on mirror neurons conducted at the ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo - San Paolo Hospital
- in 2024 he edited the afterword of the new book on autism by Raffaella Faggioli (title being finalised)
Dr Andrea F. Mazzola
Psychologist and psychotherapist with specialisations in the therapeutic field (CBT, EMDR, DBT and Behaviour Analysis) and in the field of Sport Psychology. After some experience in early intervention with young people and in psychiatry, he works mainly with autistic people from adolescence to adulthood in public (ASST-Lecco) and private (AspergerLab Milan team) contexts. He is a member of AIAMC (Italian Association of Behaviour Analysis and Modification and Behavioural and Cognitive Therapy) and of AIPP Italia (Italian Association for Prevention and Early Intervention in Mental Health) for which he contributed to a study published in 2023 to investigate the state of early intervention clinical services in the national context (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eip.13380)
PREFACE
By Raffaella Faggioli (Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Behavioural Analyst)
With this book, Lorenzo J.S. provides us with the extensive research he has done on himself in order to develop study and work strategies and, more generally, adaptation strategies that enable him to live a more serene and happier life and to achieve his goals. It sounds banal, but it is not at all: Lorenzo J.S. has developed strategies that allow him to put in place a level of effort that no longer implies the constant suffering that often characterises the experience of autistic people who are unaware of their own way of being or who cannot find a way to be themselves without constantly feeling 'wrong' and guilty about it and without having to put in place masking procedures that drive them to exhaustion. This is a very important result.For some years now, in the world of autism, a revolution has been happening in Italy as well: until a few years ago, only professionals and parents of autistic persons also characterised by a Cognitive Development Disorder (Intellectual Disability) and verbal language deficits who cannot talk to us about their inner world and who cannot explain how they could better cope with certain dimensions of their lives were talking about autism. Since the diagnostic criteria have widened and clinicians have been able to accommodate the diagnostic demand of people like Lorenzo J.S., a broader, more complex and much richer debate has begun to proliferate. Today, numerous autistic people are not only explaining their inner world to us, allowing us to go beyond the observation of behaviour and enabling us to appreciate deeper dimensions of their experiences, but they are also giving us first-hand indications and suggestions on how to deal with everyday life situations. Lorenzo J.S. was one of the first to do so. It is now clear that autism and neurotypicality are two very different workings of the mind, which do not always meet and for which not always all the educational and coping strategies that are good for one are also good for the other. We have been discussing the concept of 'dual empathy' for some ten years now (Milton 2012, 2018)1 This diversity has frightened and still frightens a lot because it seems to create unbridgeable distances. Today we are beginning to understand that only the knowledge of the profoundly different thinking style that characterises autistic and neurotypical functioning can help us see beyond the distance and appreciate this diversity by putting it at the centre of our choices. This means abandoning the idea of pursuing a cure, of abandoning the drive towards normalisation, but to place oneself in the perspective of seeking solutions that are suited to one's own style of functioning.
Accepting diversity and dealing with it is in my opinion the basis for reaching a level of acceptance that allows the autistic person to be themselves and the neurotypical person to accept them for what they are. But above all, it opens up a thought of reciprocity: accepting each other for who one is. I have known Lorenzo J.S. for many years and there have been countless situations in which we have not understood each other. It may happen that we have not really agreed on something, but often we cannot understand why it is immensely easy or immeasurably difficult for the other person to do something.The easiest consequence could have been to develop an emotion of mutual dislike and disinterest. Learning about autism together and discussing how we perceive imitation or non-verbal communication, visual thinking and structuring strategies (and many other dimensions) allowed us to see those differences on which a relationship of mutual esteem was built. This book will be a further opportunity for discussion and can be the basis for promoting critical thinking on how to approach studying and working for autistic and also neurotypical people. Certainly, as Lorenzo J.S. also writes, some of the strategies studied and developed in this book may be useful not only for autistic persons, but also for neurotypical persons.But the greatest and most interesting challenge will be to reflect together on which of the solutions adopted and suggested by Lorenzo J.S. are really specific to autism, because those will allow us to take a further step forward in our knowledge of this style of functioning and will give us increasingly refined tools to support young autistic persons approaching the world of work to be increasingly protagonists in their own lives and less dependent on clinicians and parents.
Prayer of persons with autistic functioning
by Lorenzo J.S.
We thank you Lord because you have created us as your beloved children,
you have preserved us from the deceit and lies of the world
and you left in our minds the simplicity of children.
Help us carry our daily crosses and accept them as a gift:
- when we observe the lives of others and do not understand why we are here
- when we cannot understand the looks and feel inadequate
- when our silence is considered indifference, cynicism, meanness
- when our words and facial expressions are different and therefore we are considered false
- when we would like to talk, but do not know what to say
- when we are invisible
- when we are mocked
- when we are excluded.
Grant:
- to those you did not give the floor, to otherwise express their desire for affection
- to those you have given the gift of expression, the courage to witness
- to those you have given the gift of looking beyond, of riding other rays of light and reaping other fruits for the good of humanity
- those who have not received the gift of faith, to understand the limits of pure rationality.
Grant, to those who share the path of life with us, to be able to grasp our merits and not look too harshly at our limitations. Grant that their understanding may never be ashamed, for we are not ashamed of who we are.
Do not make our sacrifice and that of those who love us vain, and accompany us on the path that leads us back to Thee.
This text opened the International Conference on Autism in the Vatican"The Person with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Animating Hope". (The Person with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Animating Hope), promoted by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers (which subsequently made the text available on its website in several languages).
After the website of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers was closed, the text was made available, in the various languages, on the website of the Diocese of Milan:
https://www.chiesadimilano.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Preghiera-delle-persone-con-funzionamento-autistico.pdf
Click here to view the video
Autistic Pride Day is celebrated in Casatenovo on 18 June with the event 'Autistic Brianza: common places or safe places?
Brianza Autistica is an evening dedicated to the celebration of Autistic Pride Day. The appointment is set for 18 June 2024 at 20:45 at the Spazio Giovani Villa Facchi in via Castelbarco 7 in Casatenovo (LC).
The event, with free admission by reservation, is designed as an interactive workshop where participants can learn to recognise and dismantle stereotypes about autism. The aim is to transform prejudices into understanding, commonplaces into safe places, for a more liveable and welcoming territory for non-conforming minds and bodies.
click here and find out more about the event programme.
At the event, the new volume by Lorenzo J.S. will be presented.
Managing autistic burnout: click here and read more
Sul Rapporto CLUSIT edizione marzo 2025 (https://clusit.it/rapporto-clusit/) presentato l’11 marzo del 2025 è presente un articolo degli autori del libro Autismo: studiare, lavorare, socializzare, ITER 2024, dedicato a come le persone autistiche possano svolgere un ruolo di rilievo nell’ambito della cybersecurity, ma anche su come le aziende che impiegano le persone autistiche nelle loro attività debbano costruire un ambiente favorevole al loro inserimento.
Visualizzalo cliccando qui
Video intervista al Dott. Andrea Mazzola (Febbraio 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Pw2R82lGU
Intervista a Lorenzo J.S.- Radio della Svizzera Italiana (Marzo 2015), dal minuto 28
