ASD

My main advise would be to go onto the main university website and look for support.  Other avenues would be the student union.

Just be careful who you tell.  

There will  be others with ASD. But most will keep it a secret for good reasons.  

Hi thanks ,,, I am so unsure about whether to tell them or not I had to complete a background check to apply here and im worried about whether they would think i wasn't competent. 

Turtle, ASD is a disability and is covered under the equalities act. 

With competency, it's damn hard to be declared incompetent under law - people can make stupid choices but that doesn't mean they are incompetent.

I would use the disability services to the max in educational settings. They've been amazing in what they've offered my SD20 with her ADHD, even if she's crap at accepting help.

I suggest you do a bit of learning about ASD in women and start by watching some TED talks about ASD as told by women who have it!

It's sometimes useful to use the neurotypical definitions vs. the neurodiverse understanding and in this case it's about helping Turtle understand that the university can not discriminate on the protected characteristics in the Equalities Act. I've had experience of using this act when people were stupid enough to try and start capability when they hadn't put in reasonable adaptions for someone with a known disability.It puts the fear up the most biased NT line manager when you then point out that payout for unfair dismissal based on a breach of the Equalities Act doesn't have an upper limit.

Additionally there is huge misunderstanding about competency even amongst professionals and  most people assume making bad choices = incompetency. The reality is the decision itself is not measured in competency assessment, it is the process of decision making and whether there is any impairment of either understanding or memory required to retain and process information for a decision. I had to recently direct someone to an aged persons charity for advocacy advice because their adult child was putting undue pressure to have enduring power of attorney. She was being coerced with "well if you won't do this I will get the GP to declare you incompetent." In the 45 minutes we spoke I picked she had some less than NT traits but she was making deliberate life choices and that her adult child was not happy with those choices.

In the ASD community like the very small adult  DCD community, those who do best learn to accept their condition is a matter of other abled rather than disabled. I'm going through a lot of work with both step daughters to get them to understand that they have a choice on how they see their ND. Both have seen their mother do a championship level pity party for the last 7 years, and they easily frame themselves as disabled.

Funniest bit, it has been when my DCD has been manifest that I've ended up having the most successful conversations with them. They still get a shock when my physical limitations stop me from doing something "normal" (my proprioception is particularly sucky at the moment secondary to a run of bad upper respiratory tract infections) because they are used to me being very competent. It gives an opening about ways of adapting and the importance of believing in yourself.

To use a DCD joke: "What doesn't kill you might make you stronger but you are likely to have scars from the attempt"

thanks  for the welcome :) kinda not to sure about anything just yet im sure i will get an understanding of things over time. 

Oh, and I should have said Welcome to the community! i hope you find it useful

Thanks I will write an email to them thank you

Thanks I will write an email to them thank you

thanks  for the welcome :) kinda not to sure about anything just yet im sure i will get an understanding of things over time. 

Oh, and I should have said Welcome to the community! i hope you find it useful