Library Service Blog

World Autism Acceptance Week 27th March – 2nd April

Written by Emma Finney.

This week we are celebrating being different and being accepted for who you are.

Imagine you felt like you were slightly out of step with friends, family and the world. Now that’s quite a big way to feel each and every day. It may even feel that almost everyone else has read the same handbook on “How to be a person – hints and tips to get through life” but for some reason you never got that book! I’m not even sure that a handbook would help! We may share similar ways of being, thinking and behaviour but we are all different.

Grab a cup of something refreshing and spend a few minutes reading to find out more about What is Autism with the National Autistic Society.

After that lovely cup of tea or coffee, our understanding may have expanded, or we may have gathered up new information and begun to look at others or ourselves a little more compassionately. Autism can mean different things to different people and you see this when you mention to someone that you are autistic. Here are some of the reactions that may sound familiar:

• A tilt of the head and nod in what appears to be sympathy.
• Vocalisations of – a ha or mmm and then the conversation moves on.
• Questions like “Will you get medication for that?”
• Friends response of ‘I called it!” as they were sure before you may have been.
• A look and then a pause in the conversation as they waited for you to say more and gave space to explain what it means to you.

Bearing in mind Autism brings with it a variety of social communication issues and we could be perceiving things incorrectly and misreading the conversation.

Our question is: why these responses? Is it that:

• when we mention something intrinsic to ourselves, people are unsure what to say?
• people are unsure what being autistic means and what autism is?
• you simply wouldn’t know what to say if your friend wanted to talk to you or share with you for the first time that they are autistic?

These are big questions and this blog post isn’t here to provide you answers but to give you things to think about.

You may hear the term spectrum applied to autism… for example that the spectrum is broad or that it’s an umbrella with a range of behaviours. There are lots of terms that may be used to describe autism. Terminology is important because being autistic is woven into your identity. Using a person’s preferred terms is a great way to begin conversations about autism. Being autistic brings a range of challenges which we may share with other autistic people, but we do not all share the same difficulties which means we need to different adjustments and strategies to cope with life.

This week we will be sharing a range of resources to support a range of different aspects of autism. Look out for the Hallam Library Tweets with link to books, podcasts and more.

To get you started:

Cook, B., Garnett, M., & Morgan, L. (2018). Spectrum women : walking to the beat of autism. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Take a look at our Box of Broadcasts playlist packed with programmes related to being autistic.