Published on 12, July, 2020
Intro:
Hi, I’m new to the forum but I hope you’ll forgive me for opening with what looks like an ad. I’m helping to organise this conference because ever since I saw Michelle Garcia Winner speak six years ago, I became very excited about the design of her Social Thinking programme. It helped me to look at the topic in a completely new way. Before I retired, I was drawing on the ideas of the programme a lot when advising parents of autistic children and education staff.
I think this conference could be very interesting and helpful to many of the parents, carers and educators out there, so I wanted to share the info with this community.
About the conferences:
Both events are aimed at adults who live or work with people who have an ASD or ADHD diagnosis (or a social communication disorder) but have good language skills. The programme focuses on practical approaches for understanding social communication barrier and strategies for providing help and support.
Michelle is a very engaging speaker with an informal style, who has been working in this area for decades.
If you’d like to find out more about the events, all of the information is at [link removed by moderator] and if you’re interested in MIchelle’s work on Social Thinking, you can read more at her excellent website [link removed by moderator]
Have a good weekend all
Moya
Hello Retired SLT, and to the users in this thread,
Unfortunately I have removed the links to commercial websites that were posted in this thread, as I believe they violate our community guidelines (see rule 7 here - https://community.autism.org.uk/p/rules ) 'Recommendations are welcome. If you’ve found a service, book, helpline, or product helpful, feel free to share. If you are using an affiliate link, please advise of this in your post or comment. We do not allow users to register an account with us primarily to advertise, or sell, products and services.'
I would like to thank the users in this thread for raising their concerns about the services being promoted here, and particularly Graham for his investigative work.
Thanks,
Ross - mod
I must admit I had a slightly negative reaction to your post initially because this forum is generally somewhere where we can avoid having things sold to us! Where interventions are recommended it is really important to me that they are evidence based. I share the concerns already expressed by Former Member. I also have some personal reservations about the 'Social Thinking' approach.
In a video interview Michelle Garcia Winner describes the grumpiness of some young people when it comes to learning about social communication. She suggests this is because the typical approach is too simplistic - they are just told to "do this" without being taught underlying, complex social rules. She goes on to describe in some detail all the thinking they need to do to make sense of things.
Learning and applying 'Social Thinking' may appear to offer immediate benefits for autistic people but there is another side to this. When autistic people attempt to fit in with allistic socialising and communication with no accommodation in the opposite direction it requires a huge amount of effort and becomes utterly exhausting.
I spent most of my adult life perfecting the art of fitting in by studying and applying social and communication skills as a practitioner, researcher and educator. I had a successful professional career, married and had children. However all this cognitive effort resulted in intermittent episodes of extreme exhaustion, and physical and mental illness, culminating in autistic burnout by my late 50s. I was then diagnosed with ASD.
To thrive as an autistic person I am learning to accept and embrace my autistic self, not simply imitate what works for allistic people. The double empathy problem is relevant here - autistic people are expected to think and behave like allistic people but allistic people seem incapable of thinking and behaving like us. Flexibility is required in both directions. In the future I will be working for organisations which accept and accommodate autism, so I don't have to use up most of my energy masking.
I would feel more comfortable if all of the conferences/events you are advertising invited autistic people to be participants, not just people who live and work with us. There also seems to be a marked lack of representation of autistic people in the design and delivery of these conferences/events, from what I have read. Having been misrepresented, mistreated and excluded for so long it is hardly surprising that autistic people are now insisting on 'nothing about us without us'.
The fact that Autism Speaks is a recommended organisation on the Social Thinking website also troubles me [link removed by moderator]
It would be really interesting to know your thoughts on this.
Thank You for your Reply!!
A while back ( and likely again sometime??), there was a big problem with "Chatbots" and "Spam" upon this Forum... That you or anyone gives feedback or corrections is very useful and important. So Thanks again, I think...! (Sorry I myself probably cannot attend your conferences,though.)
...To end this Post... could someone else have a go at saying something pertaining to the Subject, okay...?
I am very sorry. I have no idea why that is happening. It did when I tried it too. If you just google either [links removed by moderator] you will find both sites.
Greetings. Myself, I am just passing but I noticed this. I tried your links but one came up with a "Privacy Error", all very scary, nYes... Anyone else curious about this Thread may try these other Links which I assume are to the same Site but lack the Error. :
[links removed by moderator]
Good Luck. (...)