Description

The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes
By Jacqui Wells

ISBN: 978-1-84991-240-2
Published: 2011
Pages: 71
Key Themes: autism, autobiography, family, relationships

Description

The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes is the story of a family’s journey through the world of Autism. Beginning with the early scary days of diagnosis, statementing and finding the correct educational setting to the first teenage years, premenstrual mood swings and teenage tantrums.

Sophie has Autism in it’s purest form, she has no verbal speech, has behavioural problems and Sensory Processing Disorder. This story takes you from the days of Sophie being a mute, severely introverted toddler who would spend hours rocking back and forth, banging her fists on her head to now when she is a teenager who still loves her Disney films, can’t leave the house without her ‘bling’ and sulks when she can’t get her own way.

In many ways Sophie is much every other 14 year old. Her family are determined that she be given as many opportunities as possible and be able to live her life to the fullest. Autism brings many worries but can also give out great rewards.

In reading this story we hope you can understand even just a smallest piece of the Autism puzzle and know that if you are a parent going through those early days that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

About the Author

Jacqui Wells is a busy stay-at-home mum of 3 lively children. She lives in Lincolnshire with her children, husband, 11 cats, 1 hamster, 6 goldfish and 3 apple snails. In between housework, grocery shopping and paying the bills, she likes to read – anything from Maeve Binchy to James Patterson to Stephanie Meyer – and is an avid Doctor Who fan.

Suffering from depression on and off since her teens, she hit one of the lowest points of her life when her eldest child – Sophie, now 14 – was diagnosed as having Autism at aged just 21/2. A single parent at the time, Jacqui slowly came to terms with the cards life had dealt her and pick up the pieces of her shattered hopes and dreams for Sophie and for herself. Firstly, with the love and support of her parents and then with the man who would become her husband Jacqui found the strength to carry on and to realise that Autism wasn’t the end of the world, just the beginning of a new one.

The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes is the story of the journey Jacqui and her family have made, from the dark early days of despair to watching Sophie becoming the beautiful young lady she is today.