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Last summer I spent a few days at Autscape, an annual event run by autistic people for autistic people. I started to behave more and more like Edward and Edward started to behave more and more like me. if we lived in a world where most people were autistic would we be diagnosing “allism” and calling it allism spectrum disorder? Words like disordered and diagnosed feel like a very bad fit for him.

Be proactive: At the open days arrange to meet the Specialist Disability support services at the university and ask them what they do and how they can support your child. So for a student with autism this may mean they can afford to have an en suite bathroom if they struggle to share space with others, or pay for private mentoring or support as needed. Hearing impaired students would be able to fund having a note taker (you can’t lip read and take notes at the same time!) or pay for interpreters if they use British Sign Language. Examples include; having access to peer mentors, phased term starts (my friends son started a couple of days before the main student body which meant he could familiarize himself whilst it was still relatively quiet and get to know some of the other students with additional needs as well as his peer mentor).

Autscape is a conference organised by autistic people for autistic people. I wanted to take Edward to a conference where he’d have the chance to meet a wide range of autistic adults and I also wanted to find out how an event set up by and for autistic people would compare with usual spaces. There was a sensory room available throughout the conference for people to go and chill out in and there was also a quiet dinning area near the main dining area for people who found the main dining area too overwhelming. The vast majority of people at the conference were autistic; In fact I only met one other non autistic person and this meant that I gained a tiny glimpse into what life might be like if it’s not quite set up for how you are wired.

I’ve completed my training to be a business and personal coach with Barefoot Coaching and am leaving my NHS work at the end of the month to focus on my fledgling business which is called Communication Coaching, combining my background in Speech and Language Therapy with Coaching. For years I’ve wanted to get more involved in working with autistic people and I knew that if I stayed in my current job working with deaf adults this was unlikely to happen. I’m now planning  to work with people who face a wide range of communication challenges at home, at work or socially. It is a 4 day conference for autistic people which is organised by autistic people and this year there were about 200 participants.