Reading Group

Our most recent reading group session discussed the impactful theory of monotropism. Monotropism is maybe not the best-known theory about autism, but it makes a lot of sense of the experiences of some who are neurodivergent. We looked at a “paper/post” by Fergus Murray who shared his perspective of the theory and its applications. His […]

On Thursday 26th October we held the first reading group of this academic year with the topic of Autism Disclosure. I felt this was a highly relevant topic that could bring an interesting discussion- and it did. Prior to the group session we had sent out two articles for suggested reading, but these were not

Our Autism Reading Group in April focused on the topic of “Pathological Demand Avoidance” (PDA) and Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). We had a stimulating and informative discussion on the need to understand individual differences in profiles, and how this knowledge can help schools use specific approaches to offer more targeted support. It’s important to know

At our final reading group of the academic year we visited the theme of our recent event “Autistic Voices: across the spectrum”. As ever, we had a great range of perspectives and a really thoughtful discussion. Our advance questions were: How can we try to ensure that voices from the whole autistic spectrum are included

Our autism reading group this month focused on the topic of gender diversity and autism. The current literature suggests that people who don’t identify with the gender assigned at birth are 3-6 times more likely to be autistic. Our discussion was really interesting and focused around 4 main areas: How can education surrounding gender identity

This month we had another great autism reading group; this time turning to the fascinating topic of belonging. For advance preparation we had two articles about the autistic community and peer support and an inspirational TED talk about the power of friendship. Peer support   We started by talking about the benefits of peer-to-peer support

In this month’s reading group, we focused on the ‘Double Empathy Problem’. We were joined by a range of people with a diverse range of experiences and backgrounds. We provided some interesting readings for people to take a look at beforehand: Double empathy, explained | Spectrum News  Revealing the Double Empathy Problem We started with

This month we turned to the topic of autism and employment, after hearing a great podcast from Sophie Longley, who also came along to support our discussion. Our readings were:   What’s it really like to be autistic in the workplace? Autism: Workplaces ‘need to be more supportive’ A great podcast by Sophie Longley This time

In this month’s reading group we had a really interesting discussion about the effectiveness of CBT for autistic people and how we evaluate therapies. We provided an interesting reading and some discussion questions: Why are there such variations in ratings of the effectiveness of therapies? How can we adapt the way we evaluate the effectiveness

In this month’s reading group, we had a great discussion about the support for students in schools and the latest National Autistic Society 2021 School Report. The report gives recommendations of how schools might provide better support for autistic students.  We provided some advance discussion questions to think about:  Do you agree with these recommendations, and do you foresee any problems