Posts tagged shapingautismresearch

It’s here! A Starter Pack for Participatory Autism Research

Interested in making your research more meaningful to autistic people’s lives? Want to do research with autistic people, rather than on or about them? Intrigued but don’t know where to start? 

Well, this Starter Pack is for you. In fact, it is for anyone involved in autism research - in any discipline, in any capacity and in any stage of their lives.

It describes how you can begin to genuinely involve autistic people in your research – in such a way that it promotes trusting relationships, is built on mutual respect, and involves listening to, and learning from, one another – that is, being empathetic researchers.

The Pack also provides some practical ideas about how autistic people and their allies can work together in research.

All of the content was inspired by discussions and debates held in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Cardiff and London as part of the ESRC-funded Shaping Autism Research seminar series. And it was made beautiful by the wonderful artists, Ben Connors and Jon Adams - Flow Observatorium, and amazing designer, Adele Jeffs.

Over to YOU!

You can download the free Starter Pack below:

Really love the autism friendliness thought which has gone into the planning of this seminar. Other events could learn from this!
Autistic wellbeing can be very fragile, being reliant on so many factors out of people on the spectrum’s control.

Keynote lecture by Professor Roy Richard Grinker on ‘The changing values of autism’

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We were very fortunate to have Roy Richard Grinker, Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at The George Washington University and Director of the Institute for African Studies, give not one, but two talks at our ESRC Shaping Autism Research seminar on Autistic Wellbeing - one during the seminar itself and another to a packed-out lecture theatre at a public event, hosted by the Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) at UCL Institute of Education and the National Autistic Society.

Richard gave a incredibly thought-provoking lecture on ‘The Changing Values of Autism: From Disease to Citizenship in Late Capitalism’, which you can watch here

Creating comic strips to highlight autistic wellbeing

We were delighted to have illustrator and artist, Ben Connors, to talk about his own experiences - and comic creations - of autistic wellbeing and help us make our own comic strips based on lived/imagined/researched experience. People loved the comic workshop! Here are a few pics of people working on their creations with the help of the Piggie Plot Planner… 

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Beware neurotypical assumptions! Wellbeing is more than ‘happy’: inclusion, valuing people, respect, listening, acceptance

Autistic wellbeing

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Thanks to everyone who was involved in our recent seminar on Autistic Wellbeing, the fifth seminar in our ESRC Shaping Autism Research series. This particular seminar focused on working towards a shared definition of autistic wellbeing (which, as some attendees quickly pointed out, might have been overly ambitious!) and determining how best to measure autistic wellbeing in our research and embed this understanding in our practice.

Susy Ridout and Damian Milton have put together an excellent summary of the two days below.

Autistic wellbeing seminar - Fifth Seminar, London

We are delighted to announce the programme for our fifth Shaping Autism Research seminar, which is focused specifically on autistic wellbeing. You can also download the easy read programme here.


Barriers and processes impacting on wellbeing

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On Day One of the seminar, Susy Ridout and Alice Blakeley facilitated a workshop, which sought to help attendees think creatively about what ‘autistic wellbeing’ means to them and some of the barriers to it in relation to processes, power and context. These are some of the things people came up with … clearly a very thought-provoking exercise!

Wellbeing means different things to different people

What ONE thing have you learned about autistic wellbeing?

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During the second day of the seminar, we asked attendees to consider the ONE  thing that they had learned about autistic wellbeing and to write it on a postcard. This activity elicited some fantastic responses! All copied below.

Is autistic wellbeing any different to neurotypical wellbeing?