 Aspergios in Society is a Manchester-based documentary about the relationship between autism and mental health. Over the course of the filming process, I was introduced to a number of interesting autistic individuals and struck by the quality of these experiences and opinions, I decided to create a behind-the-scenes video series to showcase these marvellous people. This is one of them. I obviously know a bit about your job and role, but could you give a general outline of what you do and why you got this wrong? Okay, so I started out as a primary school teacher and was linked with a lot of schools that had autism specialists. So I learnt a lot about autism and special needs and wanted to sort of broaden my interest. So I did a lot of courses and then eventually went for a job as a teacher in charge of specialist provision, which provided an outreach service to about 100 schools in North Yorkshire. So what I do is I go in and I advise them on how to teach them with autism aspergios, how to support them, how to support their families. I also do training, so I do whole-school training. I write some of the training for North Yorkshire. I also deliver training to parents in workshops as well, post-diagnosis. So it's quite varied as well as teaching children directly on in-reach. A lot of it's an advisory role. So it's quite, there's lots of different elements to it, but it's very interesting and varied. What kind of support or training around autism have you had, if any, with your focus on what would be helpful training and maybe some of the training that you don't agree with or something to do with education or your own experience? I've had a lot of training as part of my job. I did my masters in autism, which helped hugely because I got to see a lot of famous people lecturing and lots of different perspectives as well. When we look at the autism spectrum, you look at a triad of impairment, but I think it's more of a quadrant now because you've got the sensory aspect. So I've had a lot of training from speech therapists in the speech-language side of things, occupational therapists. I've also had social skills training and signing and support from charities such as ICANN, I'm a licensed tutor for them, an L plan, which is speech-language business who have set up to support children with speech-language difficulties, which a lot of our children on the spectrum have. I think because I've had all those aspects, I'm able to approach children with more holistic view rather than just looking at one aspect of their needs. So it does mean that I can ensure that the environment for their learning is more apt for them rather than just looking at one aspect. I think one of the problems is that a lot of perhaps independent companies that sort out and support children with autism look at one area for a child and try and focus on that or try and, you know, a lot of people talk about cures for autism and we know it's a developmental disability or disorder, so we know that it's ongoing and it's not going to be cured, but we can again scaffold and support it. So that children and young people can cope better in the, in sighting, in the environment. So I think probably one of the most important aspects are to raise awareness, but not just to raise awareness of autism because I know there's been a lot on television. There's been a lot of training for teachers on how to identify children with autism. I think sometimes they're put into a little box and, you know, so you teach one child with autism, you teach one child with autism, you can't put all children into that autism box. So you have to really look at all those different areas like the sensory, the social, the speech, the communication and you have to be able to tailor your skills to those needs. So what I'd like to do is just ensure that there's a lot more training for the depth in the different areas and also there's more training for parents so that the community is more aware because quite often we get children not invited to parties or we get children that are not understood and they're telling us to stay away from them. So I've started in schools doing a little bit more of inviting, inviting parents of children that are typically developing to come to workshops so that they can understand autism better because it takes a tribe, doesn't it, to raise a child really. Have you encountered any difficulties with teaching autistic individuals? So I think there's a lot of difficulties with teaching children on the spectrum. There's an awful lot of strengths but a lot of our children are misunderstood, particularly girls that mask their social skills because they're very good at copying the girls and then naturally more sociable so that can be really difficult. I think the thing that I underestimated with children on the spectrum is the level of anxiety that can be caused by social communication can also be usually caused by any sensory needs as well and that's really underestimated. So when you've got a very busy mainstream school or you've got very busy environments it can cause a lot of anxiety for the child because they feel like they can't control it that they're very scared you know they're in a world that often they don't understand or they're having to make sense of it. So I think really I think as a professional I underestimated the anxiety. Also a lot of the sensory needs can that's where the challenging behaviour comes from and I've dealt with a lot of children with challenging behaviour. But once you actually you don't take it personally you actually dig back and track back and have that system of looking at what's triggered it and you can see and you really have to dig in and you really have to observe and look at everything at your reaction, your actions, what other people are doing, the environment how the child's feeling, what's happened earlier in the day or what's happened earlier in the week and you know quite often those things are out of your control so that's quite tricky. If over time that anxiety builds and it's not a drastic you know we know that quite often it can tip into mental health difficulties and we will warn that diagnosis with my own son actually that later on particularly children with aspergers can develop mental health difficulties because of high anxiety and trying to fit with social norms I don't think we need to like break down that need to fit with social norms at a young age so I think those are kind of the main things. Also I think a lot of parents do put ceilings on children they'll say you know you can't do this because you have autism so they're never exposed to certain situations and social situations whereas they need to go and experience it time after time in a structured way, in a supported way so that then they can deal with it and they know what to expect the next time so it's not anxiety driven so I think those are the main things because that can all then move forward to reducing anxiety, reducing stress and mental health difficulties whereas if you don't address that then that can heighten it. Brilliant. Very good. Three more questions. So has teaching autistic individuals enlightened you to any perspectives on life that you otherwise wouldn't have had? Okay so I personally I think any difference should be celebrated I don't see autism or anything else as a disability we always talk about differences and disability it is a very different way of thinking I quite often describe it as having an Xbox and a PS4 both got the same purpose and function that they're just hardwired differently and I think once you start to think outside the box and you see the strengths that somebody has rather than the difficulties I think that's what you have to focus on and you have to help them structure it because you know it's not a straight line it's a spectrum you know there are loads of strengths I mean the job that I work with I have worked with are an absolute joy they're very affectionate, they're very empathetic, they can develop skills very quickly they're quite intuitive quite often they're very very kind and actually very vulnerable very vulnerable to other children, society, other people so I think that you know a lot of care has to be taken and a lot of support needs to be there if I'd never gone down this route I think I'd have maybe felt isolated as a mother I think I needed to because I'm a mother of a child with aspergers I feel that because I've gained all this knowledge you know I'm lucky enough to have been able to do that perhaps I've been able to guide that a little bit more and be a little bit more positive maybe but I do feel that you know people do need to sort of look and change their minds that's a little bit more to just look at different ways of thinking because it's all about embracing that diversity Brilliant, very good, okay so this is an interesting one many adults, autistic believe that autism makes up a big part of their personality and there's something to be celebrated as diversity I always believe autism is a disability there's many negative effects on their life what are your opinions and analysis of those two stances it doesn't have to be your direct opinion you can talk about each of them and sort of mindsets that they may have and stuff I think it depends on what individual people have been exposed to so if you've been brought up again with that can't-do attitude then you're going to always think that your difference holds you back rather than thinking actually my difference is the strength and actually I can use this to my advantage so I think it's very much about being a nurture thing so I think it's more about the nurturing and that positive attitude that yeah you can go for it, yeah you can do it but you need this support and you need to be aware of that it certainly adds to people's personalities definitely I know that a lot of people have a lot of strengths and abilities however how you're intellect perhaps able to challenge things in a more of a black and white way so good at debating really throwing up issues that can quite often be perhaps not at the forefront I do think that a lot of people do find it particularly if you have real impacts with mental health you can quite often, I know my own son has quite often said it's because I have asked why do I have aspergers, why me? because actually I don't want to feel like this or I don't want to behave like this or I don't want to be in this situation it's because of my aspergers but I think that coupled with that if you have that huge strength which a lot of our children on the spectrum do have that huge strength to overcome that and to be able to say right I have so many skills and so many gifts that I can overcome that thirst for knowledge and finding out about themselves trying to improve, trying to improve social skills so for this it can be a real strength in combating that moving on and moving forwards but again I think it's about the network that surrounds people I think if it's positive then it's good if it's just laden in the medicine if it's just completely being immersed in medicine and going to a clinic and then out of a clinic and actually you know this because of your autism I've heard a lot of young people, young people say I can't do that because I'm autistic or my mum says I'm autistic or my dad says I'm autistic you know if you grow up with that mindset then you're never going to move you're always going to be stuck and I think that is where people have that negative impact so I think it's really important for society to change that view and actually yeah you are autistic yeah you are typically developing yeah you are whatever label but you're still just you while that unique person you are individual and you can do what you need to do to become who you want to be that's very good but you're not better than me I'm kind of jealous actually you should be a proper speaker so the last one if you could change something things about the way that society deals with autism what would you change? I think having experienced the mental health systems that are currently in place I think there needs to be a lot more psychiatrists and psychologists that have a particular skill a particular specialism with autism because we know that people that have just general skills don't actually think outside the box to how somebody is wired and how somebody might be experiencing mental health in a different way to somebody who's neurotypical who's not got autism so I would change that I would have a more specialist and a more catered environment for delivering that mental health specialism and support so it has to be done in a very very different way myself I've searched for psychologists and psychologists that can do that job post-18 there is a gap, there is a huge gap