Congratulations to Liane Holliday Willey (pictured left) and Jennifer Cook O’Toole who have both been honoured by GRASP (the Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership) with the organisation’s 2012 Distinguished Spectrumite Medal.

The award will be presented to them at a gala event today in New York City.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers is proud to publish both of these award winners!


Jennifer Cook O’Toole has Asperger syndrome and is the mother to three young Aspie children. She graduated from Brown University, and attended Columbia University’s Graduate School of Social Work. She has previously worked as a social worker, and a teacher in both special needs and mainstream education. She served on the Family Advisory Board for Levine Children’s Hospital, North Carolina, and regularly gives presentations at hospitals and local universities on special needs parenting. In 2002 she was nominated for Disney’s Teacher of the Year Award and she is due to receive GRASP’s annual Distinguished Spectrumite Medal 2012. She lives near Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.

Liane Holliday Willey is a doctor of education, a writer and a researcher who specializes in the fields of psycholinguistics and learning style differences. Dr. Willey is a married mother of three, the owner of an equine boarding facility, and the Senior Editor of Autism Spectrum Quarterly. She also has Asperger Syndrome. A frequent guest lecturer on ‘Aspie’ topics, Dr. Willey is an energetic educator and advocate of Asperger issues. She lives in Rockford, Michigan, USA.

Copyright © Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2012.

One thought

  1. Well, I have aspergers sydnmore and those are basically all of the symptoms I have. If you do have it, don’t worry it’s not really that bad. And nowadays a lot more people have it (Lived in the same small town almost all my life and met 2 people with it) and maybe it doesn’t even exist, it’s just similarities between people that are not very good socially.

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