Here's a video I made about The Autism Investor Summit
Here's a video I made about The Autism Investor Summit
Great idea! There is definitely a need for more autistic therapists, one of the only autistic led therapist groups I know of is The Neurodivergent Therapists Association:
So glad you found the article relatable and interesting , that’s even more meaningful as I wrote it! That's brilliant!
So now do you understand the potential difference between Processing Mutism and Situational Mutism? What is your experience of mutism like?
Thanks so much for reading it and giving feedback, I appreciate it so much! I will be writing a series on this subject, so hopefully you can gain more insight into your autistic experience of mutism. I will be writing about other stress responses including freeze and fawn and linking experiences of overwhelm to monotropism.
I look forward to more of your comments!
Thanks! I regularly check it the Autistic Village website. I recently read this which I thought was very interesting as it discusses mutism which is common amongst autism but you don't really hear much about it.
As someone who experiences mutism from both autism and anxiety this made very interesting reading for me. It's a great site, always informative and interesting.
You are so welcome! I am glad you found it interesting, there are lots of other articles on the Autistic Village website that you may find insightful.
It’s great to see more autistic researchers focusing on studies that actually are beneficial to our communities as opposed to non autistic ‘autism’ researchers who sometimes want to try and find out why we exist (which is obviously dangerous and dehumanising in itself!).
Absolutely! Really great to see more autistic researchers out there. Thanks for the link in your original comment, informative and interesting. A lot of food for thought.
I'm hoping funding will provide support for autistic people of all ages and backgrounds.Talking therapy would be good as well rather than the go to of medication which doesn't seem to work for many people with autism.
Good video Daniel! Great discussion as well.
You are welcome!
It’s great to see more autistic researchers focusing on studies that actually are beneficial to our communities as opposed to non autistic ‘autism’ researchers who sometimes want to try and find out why we exist (which is obviously dangerous and dehumanising in itself!).
Thanks for the link to Pellicano’s profile. You may also be interested in other autistic researchers including Monique Botha (specialism in minority stress) and the work of Chloe Farahar (specialism in prejudice reduction, mental health, positive autistic identity and culture - pronouns for Farahar are they/she)
https://youtu.be/Ijap1yOBVd0?si=bH70g0pBemeusGqg
I will take a look at the article. Thanks! Thinking about autism research reminded me of Liz Pellicano who is an autism researcher that I saw give a talk last year and that really impressed me- she is very keen to improve lives of autistic people. Her research team is composed of autistic and neurotypical individuals and they take into account the opinions of the autistic community and work closely with autistic individuals to make sure their work will be of use to help autistic people flourish . I was really impressed and think we need more people like her and funding needs to go towards their work. profiles.ucl.ac.uk/.../about
Hi neurokin!
You may find this article about research and funding priorities for our autistic community interesting/relatable:
I absolutely agree with all of them obviously but I would particularly like to see as stated more emphasising on amplifying non speaking members of our autistic community and I would love to learn and see more attention given to the experience of being apraxic (the reason why many nonspeakers can’t reliably use speech).
What do you think about the priorities explained in the article?
I work in education and there is very little training (or time for said training), we are expected to be experts in everything by telepathy, I think. So more training absolutely. And education generally - I've still to find the most effective, succinct way of explaining what autism is (and isn't).
There needs to be much more funding for diagnosis and support of children. The situation is dire and schools, with the best will in the world (and mine is full of lovely people) are fearful places for autistic folk big and small.
I think funding should go towards 1) improving understanding of autism by providing better training for teachers, doctors, mental health professionals etc. Also other outreach work to increase awareness in the general population would be great. 2) in terms of research I think there needs to be a bigger focus on how to improve lives of autistic people - ie what adjustments are helpful? How can therapy be adjusted ? Etc. I think as part of this some common mental health issues experienced by autistic individuals such as autistic burnout need to be better defined and some guidelines need to put into place on how to recognise burnout and how to best help.
I also believe it is important to involve autistic researchers in autism research.
A lot of research into autism is currently focused on genetics, neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying autism etc. Whilst this can provide valuable information from a basic science perspective, it is unlikely to improve the lives of autistic people. Also in such research papers autism is often portrayed in a very negative way: eg differences are referred to as ‘defects’ ‘, it’s referred to as a ‘disorder’ etc. Also there is often mention of ‘treatment’ which is concerning.
I’m autistic and I’m also a developmental neurobiologist so sadly I’m frequently faced with colleagues discussing autism in a very negative light. I don’t think this is meant to be hurtful to anyone (and most don’t know I’m autistic) but it comes from a severe lack of understanding of what being autistic means.
