2016 Presentations

Often people's expectations of who we are and how we identify, are at odds with how we feel ourselves.

Maintaining a strong and healthy sense of self identity can be challenging when those around us do not respect the way we choose to identify or expect us to be able to fit only the stereotypes they themselves have created in relation to who they think autistic people are.

As a representative the stakes can be higher, our identity is often under even more scrutiny and this can have a direct impact upon our effectiveness at ensuring the views of those who wish to be represented are heard and taken seriously.

In my lecture I will explore these ideas and suggest solutions to some of the commonest pitfalls, as well as steps we can take to protect ourselves when surrounded by those who refuse to accept us.

Is identity something we adopt for ourselves, or is it conferred externally. Do we have multiple identities in different settings and is our autistic identity only one of these?

Is an identity defined by a psychiatric condition ever anything other than stigmatising, or is it a response to stigma? Do we internalise oppression within our identity or make a bold stand against it?

I discovered the world of autistic identity more than a decade ago and the world of autistic culture within which I expressed it has moved in the intervening years, so I ask this series of questions based around the question of whether that original identity is still valid and if so where it is valid.

My long experience of the autistic community has enabled me to observe changes in the way that it has been expressed over the years.

This lecture attempts to evaluate how the concepts of autistic culture and identity developed since the 1990s and to extrapolate where we should go in the future.

Autism is not excluded from the "culture wars" now going on in Western societies at large, in which identity is central. As identities become ever more politicised, people are increasingly invested in them, leading both to more tight-knit communities and more polarisation between them. This lecture will explore the concept of inclusion in the context of ever-increasing polarisation, and what the implications are for the autistic community in general and for Autscape in particular.

Trends are parallel but different in the US, the UK, Europe and in the rest of the world. The autistic community remains fragmented, with different factions in various countries sometimes unaware of each others' existence. Options for bridging the gaps between the various islands will be discussed.

Some professionals think they know all about autism. And some actually have autism. Is there a difference?

Professions have rules. And the legal profession is even all about rules. They teach you them during training. Or so they say. But they're just the written down rules.

What about all the unwritten rules and customs and practices that professions have, especially the law? Can an auty survive and even thrive in such an environment without being 'one of the chaps'? How does this exclusion affect a professional auty?

My thesis is that whilst autism tends to be viewed as a minus, especially by NTs, sometimes nothing could be further from the truth. But then the danger is it may be perceived as a threat to the status quo. So I will speak about my experience and provide some reflections.

There is increasing recognition of a serious divide between the research and autism communities. Specifically, autistic adults and family members do not feel engaged in research and voice concerns that researchers are not working on issues that are important to them (Pellicano et al, 2014).

In an attempt to bridge this divide a series of workshops were developed by autism@manchester in collaboration with SalfordAutism. These workshops were designed to improve communication between the autistic and research communities, aiming to increase the involvement of the autism community in the lifecycle of research.

In this presentation two of the organisers- Peter Baimbridge and Dr Daniel Poole will discuss data collected at the workshops, and reflect on how the workshops were developed and implemented

Autism is highly stigmatised, many autistic people refuse to acknowledge their autism to others and sometimes even to themselves. However, for me personally, and many autistic people I know claiming and exploring our identities as autistic people has been life enhancing, and even some would say, liberating.

This workshop will examine what it means to discover that part of your identity which was always there has, or perhaps suddenly acquires, a stigmatised term attached to it. The context of autism in society at large and how that has affected those of us who choose to name autism as part of our identity will be explored. We will look at how we can go on to develop a positive pro-active indentity as a community despite autisms contested status is the larger community.