Category: autistic culture
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The Dangers of Pejorative Language
There remains a pervasive and deeply worrying use of pejorative language in society when discussing Autistic people. Of course, this has originated from the early observations of Autistic people almost a century ago, where clinicians made observations of young children displaying distress and judged how they measured against non-autistic people. Despite how much time has…
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Minding Autistic Minds Conference 2024
What an amazing few days in Ireland this week at the Minding Autistic Minds conference (run by AUsome Training) sharing space with wonderful people. It was full of extraordinary practice (and life) changing presentations and workshops. Everyone who supports Autistic people needs to attend events like this. It was so validating to experience on a…
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Just Published! ‘Creating Safe Spaces for Autistic People’
*Publishing Day* ‘Creating Safe Spaces for Autistic People’ (co-written with Laura Hellfeld) is now available as a paperback! (See links below) You can choose either the full colour or colour reduced version. An eBook of both versions will also be coming soon. https://amzn.eu/d/hIpjjQP https://amzn.eu/d/e99Ub1l ID: Beige background with an image of the Creating Safe Spaces…
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Training with Better Lives Partnership
I had a great day yesterday in Dumfries and Galloway delivering a training session to the fantastic Better Lives Partnership. This was my first time facilitating a session in-person through AUsome Training (an organisation in Ireland I often work with). A lovely way to celebrate Weird Pride Day! The session focused on ‘Exploring Neurodivergent Learning’…
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A Few Book Recommendations
These are a few recommendations of books by Autistic authors and illustrators that I’ve read over the past week. Please consider supporting their work if you are able to. Links to these are below. 🙂 Gregory Tino has an amazing series of books titled ‘Autism and I’ exploring their experiences as a non-speaker. There is…
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Autistic People can Only Thrive as Autistic People
This was originally one of my first posts and images I shared on my Facebook page last year. I thought I would publish it here as well given how important this is to understanding and supporting Autistic people. One of my guiding principles is that we can only thrive as Autistic people. Changing us to…
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Being Autistic Trainers: AUsome Training Video
Recently I was fortunate to receive an opportunity to join the team of AUsome Training, an Autistic-led organisation based in Ireland. I previously connected with AUsome through several webinars I delivered with them earlier this year. I had a chat last month on Facebook Live with the lovely Evaleen Whelton, the founder of AUsome Training.…
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Autistic Pride Day
Today is Autistic Pride Day. This is a day that was first held back in 2005 by Autistic people. Gwen Nelson, who invented Autistic Pride Day, is also trans, which Autistic people are more likely to identify as. It is a day that was founded to combat stigma and reframe the pathologising narrative in society,…
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‘Autistic’ is Not Synonymous with ‘Distress’
‘Autistic’ is not synonymous with ‘distress’. Being Autistic does not cause meltdowns, anxiety, or trauma. Usually we are described by how we are “affected by autism” but what we are actually being affected by is the environments we are in and the lack of support we receive. Meltdowns can occur in environments not designed for…
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Striving for a Better World
As we move into a new year, let’s make further steps towards creating a world where Autistic and other Neurodivergent people are valued as being part of human diversity rather than a pathology to fix. To embrace deviations from neuronormativity rather than to treat them as broken or sick. A world that identifies our experiences…
Autistically Scott 