Hi I'm a 20 yr old female with Aspergers diagnosed in 2004, currently doing a BSc psycholgy degree and I need any advice on work/carrers as I'm worried about leaving uni next year and not knowing what helo there is out there for people with Autism.
Thanks
I was thinking that is don't want to go back to uni because it's so stressful.
In my first year of Psychology, I took these modules
research methods
social and developmental psycholgy
Mind, body & brain
Psycholgy in Practice
academic writing
Experience psycholgy
in my second year my modules I've done
Mind, Body& Brain 2
social and developmental 2
perparing for independent researth
research methods 2
personality & abnormal behaviour
persepctive in consciousness
and next in my third year I'm taking
autism module
positive psycholgy
Cognitive and emotion
criminal and forensic psycholgy
And I'm doing my dissistation on Autism
i really want to work adults or children with Autism.
let them know. all should be well. good luck~!
My sons school has a number of learning support assistants, some are retired academics who just want to put something back into the system. My son's science lsa has a doctorate and a germ named after him, which my son thinks is super cool.
The special needs department has now set up small teaching groups for children who cannot for one reason or another partake in classroom activities. Groups are no more than 4 at any one time, and many lsa's enjoy working in small groups and seeing on a daily basis an improvement in that's childs abilities.
You could always try that sort of thing and go back to uni later if you wanted to become a teacher.
As a matter of interest, what aspects of psychology did you take to?
It is worth bearing in mind that teaching involves talking to a sea of heads, mostly nodding off or pre-occupied with texting their friends. There will be some one-to-one, but to them teachers are all weird, so any obvious difficulties you have with eye contact or mannerisms will just register as typical ugly boring teacher.
Where you may have an advantage is that, because you have to listen harder, you will appear to be a good listener. Also you will be less inclined to put on airs or act all superior, as you may find yourself relying on what you can do in any situation being much the same. That strangely will make you seem more accessible.
What you may have to do is put more effort into lesson plans and structuring your teaching, which is a good thing. NTs get lazy about lesson plans because they think their personalities will carry them through. Teachers on the spectrum will also tend to be more thorough about knowledgeable content.
Where I'd be cautious is that fitting in with other teachers is the more likely problem - too many petty, pushy, self conceited, difficult to get on with misfits - just like school all over again.
On the wider career front, try searching for "sector skills councils" on the web. I'd give a link but the Government has been mucking about with this, changing labels and websites, so it is a pain. There is still something called the sector skills alliance, which lists the sector skills councils with contact details and background.
The sector skills councils are responsible for training and qualifications in the sectors they cover, so you can get a lot of information about what you'd need to top up your degree to get into a given job, but also a lot about what these jobs entail.
I'd strongly recommend anyone on the verge of job hunting or currently unemployed and looking for new opportunities to look at these, albeit they are currently hard to track down. From an autism perspective they may give you some "edge" through being able to identify skills you are really comfortable with and know how these can be applied to jobs, so you can come over better applying for jobs.
Hi - there are mental health + learning disability nhs trusts who could be an employer, either as a psychologist or perhaps at 1st as a nursing assistant. There are care organisations which either specialise in autism or have autism as an array of services they aim to provide. A lot depends on what the "job market" is like when you graduate, how much demand there will be from employers, the class of your degree, the reputation of your uni. Good luck with everything.
The teaching profession seems to be a, popular choice. Not probably an obvious choice at first, but many asperger adults kind teaching less stressful as there is a lot of structure in the day
Working with animals is also popular. You could combine your psychology studies with animals. Children with asd respond well to animals, so you could look into therapy opportunities.
Hope that helps..
