Category: Autism

Positive Autism Awareness Conference

An account of the Positive Autism Awareness Conference staged by NAS West Norfolk yesterday at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn. Read, enjoy and please share.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday NAS West Norfolk held a Positive Autism Awareness Conference at the Duke’s Head Hotel in King’s Lynn, and this post,which will be a major one is all about that event.

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The Dukes Head, where the Positive Autism Awareness Conference took place on April 15th. This photo was constrained by the presence of the Mart. After a fortnight in Lynn, the Mart splits in to two to go to various other places around the country – but it is only in Lynn that you get to see everything.

THE PRELIMINARIES

Some us went to the venue on Thursday evening to do a some preliminary setup work to reduce the amount that needed to be done on the day itself. Here are a few photos from that…

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Adjoining my photographic stand the other stand I would be covering on the day – the NAS stand

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My photographic stand – with a blank space for the laptop

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THE DAY ITSELF

Those of use involved in organizing the event were required to be there by 8AM so that we were ready when the guests started arriving. I arrived bright and early (given that the venue is a five minute walk from my flat so I jolly well should have done!), and got my stall up and running. Here are some photos from before the event started…

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A close ups from the NAS stalll

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An excellent acrostic

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The Speads stall – the young woman running the stall goes by the name of Carly

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Musical Keys

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The seating area, already looking satisfactorily full.

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Almost ready to start.
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Lynda Niles preparing to give the first talk of the day.
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My NAS West Norfolk lanyard.

THE FIRST SESSION

Indefatigable branch chair Karan McKerrow opened the event and explained that the day was about being positive about autism and autistic people, mentioning both myself and Callum and what we were going to be doing during the day. Then it was time for Lynda Niles’ talk. At that stage we were operating without amplification, and I was stood at the back, but I still heard every word that Lynda said. Lynda’s talk was accompanied by slides, which show you what she covered…

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THE BEANBAG INCIDENT

One of the things we had at this event was a ‘dark den’ with a beanbag inside as the floor was quite hard. The den itself survived unscathed, but the beanbag was a different story…

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That is now an ex-beanbag!

CALLUM’S POEM

Callum Brazzo, the other of two autistic adults to be on the committee of NAS West Norfolk, recited a poem he had created about autism as the next feature of the conference. I am unable to remember the exact words, but it was a splendid performance, and I sure that if you email Callum he can supply the words (perhaps you could post them in the comments section as well, Callum). Meanwhile, here he is in action…

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MEL BRUCE’S AUTISM FRIENDLY RULES

Clinical psychologist Dr Mel Bruce and a commissioner named Sharon shared the next session, but before I move on to that, Mel has learned some excellent rules for making sessions autism friendly, and here they are…

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Mel Bruce Autism Friendly Guidelines
This shows all off the ‘rules diagrams’ in one picture – a composite of the other two pictures.

MEL AND SHARON 

We had a working microphone by this point, which Mel and Sharon shared, taking it in turns to speak. They introduced the ‘bucket model’ for anxiety of which much more later, talked about their respective jobs and about quite a few other things.

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Sharon speaking, with Mel standing next to her.

LUNCH

Karan had organised food for us, which turned out to be excellent, and thus fortified we were ready for the afternoon session, which opened with the undoubted star speaker of the event…

ANNA KENNEDY OBE

Anna had arrived during lunch and expressed her admiration for my photos. Anna talked about her experiences bringing up two autistic children, going on People’s Strictly (partnered with Robin Windsor) and launching Autism’s Got Talent (and successfully facing down Mr Cowell over that suffix!). Her talk was thoroughly inspiring.

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Anna’s talk was followed by a short break, during which I took this picture…

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My photographic stall, The NAS stall and Karan’s younger son Ciaran (I took this picture at Karan’s specific request)

THE FINAL SESSION:
STAR FISH PLUS AND THE BUCKET MODEL

The last session of the day was another joint effort, by Holly and Michelle,two of Mel’s colleagues at Starfish Plus. Their presentation went into more detail about the ‘bucket model’, and was an excellent way to bring down the curtain on the event…

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MY PHOTOGRAPHIC DISPLAY AND
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE DAY

My photographic stall was very successful. The event itself was a massive success. Not counting us committee members 145 people packed out the venue, every session was interesting and informative  and the stalls were all fantastic.

My photographic stand – with a blank space for the laptop
Adjoining my photographic stand the other stand I would be covering on the day – the NAS stand

Many Things

Some pictures, a mention of a DPAC public meeting in Norwich, some stuff about the London Mayoral Elections, and some autism related stuff.

INTRODUCTION

I have many things to cover in this post and some photographs to share.

KING’S LYNN PICS

The first few pictures I shall be sharing are from earlier in the week, but yesterday morning, with Saturday being treated as Sunday because my mother is travelling to Tonbridge today for an 11-week return to teaching, I went for a walk before going to my aunt’s for the journey to East Rudham, and that is where the rest of the pics in this section com from.

My Brunel £2 coins in their new niche.
This is the last of pre-saturday pics.
A very large earthworm (according to the folks behind “What on Earth Evolved the signle most important animal species on the planet)
An angled shot of Hanse House
Two of the ground-floor windows of Hanse House – the completeness of the blocking of sight through these windows creates suspicion as to what exactly is being done inside this grade 1 listed building.
The upper floor, which juts out over the street.

 DPAC PUBLIC MEETING IN NORWICH

DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) are holding a public meeting in Norwich on Thursday 21st April. I shall definitely be attending. A jpg of their official poster for this meeting is below:

DPAC Poster

INTERLUDE – EAST RUDHAM

A few things caught my eye while at my parents house for lunch, and here are some pictures from there…

A display on a small ledge above the stairs.
A close up of the blue stone slice
This wall-mounted shell took three attempts before I was happy, starting with this one.
Attempt 2
Attempt 3 – success!
This was taken from an oblique angle, and led later to…
This front-on shot showing the original three things and a couple of others. The two pottery pieces are of the same design as my parent’s regular crockery, although these are purely for display.

THE LONDON MAYORAL ELECTION

Although it is nearly 17 years since I last called the city home, I have been keeping an eye on the London Mayoral Elections (after all, the fact that I run a London transport themed website is evidence that I still retain some interest in the place), and there have been several interesting developments. The full list of candidates looks like this:

London Mayoral Elections List

Of these, seven have done nothing  to merit being taken seriously, namely David Furness, George Galloway, Paul Golding, Lee Harris, Ankit Love, Sophie Walker and Prince Zylinski. Of these seven, I would hope that Furness and Golding finish at the bottom of the heap, and a severe kicking for Mr Galloway would be no bad thing either. Now to move on to the big five:

Candidates

Peter Whittle is as despicable as one would expect a UKIP candidate to be. Caroline Pidgeon has some good ideas but is standing for a party whose credibility is utterly shot after a disastrous five years in cahoots with the Tories. Sadiq Khan, the bookies favourite, also has some good ideas, and a win for him would be a good result. Sian Berry has run by far the best campaign to date, and has lots of good ideas. To borrow some terminology from the great bridge player and writer of the distant past S J Simon, a win for Sian Berry would be the best possible result for this election, while a win for Sadiq Khan would be in the category of a best result possible. I have left to the last Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative Party candidate. He and has team have run a despicable, divisive, negative campaign and deserve to have a disastrous result. I have two links relating to Mr Goldsmith’s failings:

My first is to a New Statesman piece in which a long-standing Conservative Party activist gives a crushing analysis of everything that is wrong about the Goldsmith campaign. The other link is to a Huffington Post piece regarding a spectacularly inadequate performance by Mr Goldsmith when quizzed about the city of which he wants to be mayor. Goldsmith achieved a risible 5 out of 9. When I took the similar quiz that Huffington Post produced to for  people to measure their own performance I managed 8 out of 9, with the one question I got wrong being about a TV program set in London that  have never watched. Those who follow the link and take the quiz are welcome to comment on their own scores.

IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENTS

This Friday, April 15th, is the day of NAS West Norfolk’s Positive Autism Awareness Conference, at which I shall be presenting a photographic display. Thursday April 21st as already mentioned is when the DPAC public meeting in Norwich takes place. Wednesday April 27th is James and Sons April auction, for which a full catalogue can be viewed online. On Saturday April 30th I will be attending a training session at the National Autistic Society’s London HQ. This is base closed to Angel station, and therefore within walking distance of King’s Cross, as the map with which I finish this post demonstrates.

NAS

 

Monday Mishmash

A mixed bag of a post, featuring autism, public transport, cricket and photography among others.

INTRODUCTION

I have many things to share with you today about a variety of subjects. Read on and enjoy!

AUTISM

Earlier today I spotted a link on twitter to something posted on assistiveware called “5 Guidelines to Keep in Mind for Autism Acceptance Month”. I recommend you read it in full, and here to tempt you is guideline 3 in all it’s glory (this was the one the resonated most closely with me, though all 5 are on the money and very important:

3

Nothing about us without us.

It is not uncommon to see human interest stories about autism where parents, teachers, speech therapists, and even the school janitor all share their insights on an autistic person and what autism means for him or her. It often seems that the only person who doesn’t get a word in is the subject of the article! The problem here is that nobody is a mind-reader. I’m sure everyone reading this has experienced your parents making mistakes about your thoughts or opinions. Autism doesn’t change that. 

Not every person with autism will be able to respond to interview questions. However, many who could are simply not asked. Others can speak or write, but struggle to answer questions in real time. For these people, simple accommodations like providing written interview questions ahead of time can make a huge difference!

Another common error is to assume that no autistic person will ever read an article about autism. Writers may say we are “unlike you and me,” or “just like you and me,” but only rarely are we included as part of the “us” that makes up the readership. The truth is, there is nowhere where you can safely assume that none of us are present. Autism is an extremely variable condition, where many different combinations of traits can all lead to the same diagnosis. Whatever your audience is, chances are at least a few of us are already in it.

I conclude this section with a brief mention for another twitter find, who also caught my attention by contributing something about autism, Walsingham Support, which happens to lead neatly on to my next section…

TWO NEW PIECES ON WWW.LONDONTU.BE

I had already decided that I was going to put up a post about Mile End on the website when I saw the tweet from Walsingham Support that piqued my interest in them. I noted their address, and guessed that this was a peg on which I might be able to hang a post about Totteridge & Whetstone, which hunch proved correct. Below are links, each accompanied by a picture, to the posts in question:

  1. Totteridge & Whetstone
    Totteridge & Whetstone
  2. Mile End
    Mile End Station

THE WORLD T20 FINAL

The West Indies completed a double in the World T20, the women having romped past the Aussies to take their title. The men’s match between the West Indies and England was a match of twists and turns, which looked like England had it when the West Indies need 19 from the last over. However, Carlos Brathwaite (Brath-ut if you want to pronounce that surname West Indies fashion) then hit four successive sixes off Ben Stokes to give the West Indies victory. I listened to the early stages of this match at my parent’s house after Sunday lunch, on the first day of the year that it was warm enough to sit outside, and while listening and reading a book (Dawkins’ “The Greatest Show on Earth”) I also took some…

PHOTOGRAPHS

A word of warning to those who suffer peculiar phobias, this set of photographs features ladybirds.

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The first nine pictures were taken in King’s Lynn yesterday morning.

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Sunday pudding – a variation on a classic theme – a rhubarb and custard tart – and it tasted at least as good as it looks in this picture!

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My last picture of the day, back in King’s Lynn

All the Bs (And a Follow Up on Autism Awareness Day)

A follow up to my Autism Awareness post, combined with some new photographs.

INTRODUCTION

The first part of my title refers to the fact that as well as birds I have a bee and some butterflies among my camera captures for the day, while the second refers to the fact that today is Autism Awareness Day and gives a nod in this direction.

MORE ON AUTISM AWARENESS DAY

I have some infographics spotted on the internet to share with you and a few links including an important petition. I will start with the petition, launched on change.org by my friend and fellow NAS West Norfolk committee member Callum Brazzo calling for greater representation of non-verbal autistics on TV and in Employment. Please follow this link to sign and share the petition, and let’s build it big!

My next link is to a splendid article posted on indepedent.co.uk which tallies very closely with my own views on autism.

Now to a link and an infographic. The link is to the website of the wonderful Anna Kennedy OBE (who will be at our Positive Autism Awareness Conference on April 15th) and the infographic is her Autism Awareness infographic:

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Another link and infographic pairing, this time to the National Autistic Society’s TMI campaign, raising awareness of sensory issues:

TMI

The bright light at the south-eastern corner of The Wash is me putting myself on this map.

My remaining infographics come without links, and I present them in pairs, first these two general ones:

I finish this section with two warning infographics for our American friends about an organisation who are widely condemned in the autistic community:

A straightforward but devastatingly revealing breakdown of expenditure.
The pie-chart version.

BIRDS, BEES, BUTTERFLIES

In reverse alphabetical order, I start with some butterfly pictures…

A Peacock Buterfly (this was about 200 metres from Bawsey Drain which is known as place where they live). I have already shared this on twitter and my timeline is going crazy with responses.
Bawsey Drain’s information board about wildlife – the only species on it I have never seen there is a coot.
A super close-up of the Peacock Butterfly.

Now we have the bee (yay!)…

The loose pebble behind it gives it scale!

Now for the rest of my pictures, which mainly feature the other B I mentioned, birds…

 

Autism Awareness Day

This is a post created for Autism Awareness Day. Read, enjoy and please share.

INTRODUCTION

Today is Autism Awareness day. Therefore there will be a lot about autism, some from autistic people, some from autism advocates etc. This is my first offering of the day, and I shall start with…

AUTISM AND ME – A TIMELINE

Of course, since I have written about all these things before many of my readers already know a good deal of this. Autism is lifelong, but not always diagnosed as early as it should be (indeed there are still problems in my part of the world with people waiting literally years for a diagnosis). Thus although I am a forty year old autistic person my timeline spans less than ten of those years…

  • Late 2006 – Diagnosed at Cambridge Lifespan Asperger Support Services
  • 2007 became involved with Asperger East Anglia
  • 2007 took part in a research project relating to autism for the first time (I still do so on a regular basis)
  • 2008-9 Worked with Asperger East Anglia full-timers and some local volunteers to establish a support group in King’s Lynn
  • 2011 was appointed group leader of the King’s Lynn support group and coincidental with that launched this blog.
  • 2012 Funding cuts forced the King’s Lynn support group to go it alone, which we did to the best of our abilities
  • 2013 The group had a meeting room at the local football club, though the most significant event of this year for me personally was in April when I got the first paid job I had since being diagnosed (the same job I am still in today).
  • 2014 the King’s Lynn Asperger Support Society as the group was by then known lost its meeting room and made do with meeting where we could. On October 24th of that year I launched a personal twitter account, @aspitweets, which now has just over 3,500 followers.
  • 2015 After months of falling attendances, I finally conceded defeat over KLASS, which when I finally held up my hands had survived on no funding of any kind for 34 months. Subsequently I found out about an awareness event that the West Norfolk branch of the National Autistic Society were holding within walking distance of my home and went along to learn more, joined the group and was subsequently given a place on the committee.
  • 2016 Will be helping to run NAS West Norfolk’s Positive Autism Awareness Conference on April 15th, at which I will also be putting on a photographic display. Also, having attended and enjoyed AutismCon 2016 and given them detailed feedback, my blog post on the subject will be used for publicity purposes for AutismCon 2017, at which I may well get to put on another photographic display.

AUTISM AWARENESS

While increasing autism awareness is a laudable goal, it is insufficient. In an attempt to help explaining my view of where autism awareness fits I have produced a mini flow-chart to which I will append some words of explanation:

Autism

In the UK at least, not many people are actually completely unaware of autism, although their understanding of it and what it means is often limited (sadly in some cases deliberately so). Acceptance, which is the next stage up from understanding is something that far fewer have managed. Inclusion is the final goal, and by inclusion I mean full acceptance of the autistic person complete with foibles, tics, stims et al.

SPECIAL INTERESTS

Something that autistic people are well-known for is having special interests. The word obsession with its negative connotations should be avoided in this context. My own special interests include photography, public transport (see www.londontu.be for more on this) and cricket (watching brief only – I never had any aptitude as a player).

PHOTOGRAPHS TO FINISH

Well done all of you have made to this stage, as a reward here are some pictures which between them relate to two of my listed special interests.

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All but the last two of these pictures are from a walk a took yesterday afternoon.

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I have used this once before, but wanted to include a picture showcasing one of my special interests. This one, showing both reverses and the accompanying info is an example of what the auction image should have looked like.
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Anyone who sees this last picture is a worthy recipient of the message!

De Niro pulls his anti-vaxxer film and explains why

What do you think about this one…

whyevolutionistrue's avatarWhy Evolution Is True

As Greg and I posted yesterday, Robert De Niro pushed to have Andrew Wakefield’s new film, ““Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” included in the Tribeca Film Festival. He and his wife have an autistic child, which might explain why he was so gung-ho on showing a film that paints Wakefield as a hero and the medical establishment as engaged in a massive coverup. Apparently De Niro wasn’t aware of Wakefield’s fraudulent studies trying to connect autism with the MMR vaccine, or of his subsequent disgrace and loss of his medical license.

Greg noted yesterday that the Festival had pulled the film, but today’s New York Times gives a bit more information. You can read the article, but here’s De Niro’s take:

In a statement, Robert De Niro, a founder of the festival, wrote: “My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is…

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Gaywood & The Rookery

An account of a walk that took in Gaywood & The Rookery. Also some mentions of autism related matters to top and tail the post.

INTRODUCTION

Those of you who read my post on Wednesday about preparing for the Positive Autism Awareness Conference that NAS West Norfolk are having on April 15th will recall that I noted the entrance sign to Gaywood & The Rookery. Today I got back there for a proper look…

GETTING THERE

I followed the same route as I had on Wednesday, but this time with no time constraints. I caught a glimpse of a Muntjac (thank you Helen for the ID) but this one proved too elusive for me to photograph, although I did see a few things worth photographing…

Lonely on a rock
This is what happens if you have lined up the shot and the creature decides to move after you have clicked to take it!

GAYWOOD & THE ROOKERY

I ventured in, and was delighted by the place. I will let the photos tell the story of this amazing little piece of woodland that is within walking distance of the centre of Norfolk’s third largest town…

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HOMEWARD BOUND

I had left Gaywood & The Rookery by a different path from the one I entered it by, and now headed home by a different route, save for a very short stretch of path to the bridge over the railway, and thence through the Hardwick Estate, and ultimately on this occasion back to the town centre by way of the river (I could also have gone by way of the cemetery and the parklands).

A circle of tree stumps
Many meetings/ partings
The sole stretch of path that i walked twice.

AUTISM AWARENESS

A bit disconnected from the rest of this post I know, but I have an infographic to share to remind everyone that April 2nd – 8th 2016 is World Autism Awareness Week (courtesy of patienttalk.org)

WAAW

Preparations for the Positive Autism Awareness Conference

Preparations for the Positive Autism Awareness Conference and a post-lunch walk, therefore lots of photos.

INTRODUCTION

Although the Positive Autism Awareness Conference that we at NAS West Norfolk are holding on April 16th at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn on April 15th is at the heart of this piece there are also lots of new photographs for me to share.

AN ORGANIZING MEETING

Today there was a meeting at the home of NAS West Norfolk branch chair Karan McKerrow to assemble ‘goodie bags’ for the event. As she lives out in the country and not on a regular bus route, this meant arranging a pick up for me, so my first task was to get to Churchill Park School to meet the person who would be giving me a lift. Thus before anything else I have to say a…

MEA CULPA

I was almost twenty minutes late at the meeting place because I walked and made the mistake of not sticking to a route that I knew, and lost my way at one point. I had left myself an hour in which to make the journey, which should have been ample but for the mishap. Also, although I can supposedly connect to facebook and my phone I tried twice and was unable to do so, so could not communicate my whereabouts (I had no contact numbers with me either). The confession out of the way I can now attend to the rest of…

GETTING THERE

I set off exactly when I had intended to, headed for the parkland, following roughly the line of St John’s Walk, taking these photos in the early stages…

At this point I was close to the Tennyson Road level crossing, which was in the process of closing, so I walked to the barrier and waited. The train was goods train, and worth a few more pics…

Immediately after this, at the point at which I made my first wrong move (the path forks, and one direction leads through to KES and the main road, which would have been safe but dull, the other heads in the direction of the hospital – closer to my goal, and a more interesting route) I saw something very unexpected given the proximity of a main road and the even closer proximity of the railway tracks – a brace of deer.

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Both deer in one shot

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The incipipent antlers possessed by this one combined the face confirm that it is a species of deer.

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I have shown these as individual images rather than a tiled mosaic in the hope that someone can identify the species of deer (anyone there at whyevolutionistrue?).

Now we come to the point at which things went pear-shaped, near this sign…

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I decided not to venture in to the woodland (ironically I would probably have saved time by doing so), but chose the wrong path, and it was in this section of the walk that I ran irretrievably late. By the time I located Gayton Road (by way of Gaywood Hall Drive) I was already ten minutes late, and as previously mentioned, could not log on to facebook. It was another ten minutes rapid walking before I arrived at the head of Winston Churchill Drive, and was spotted by the people picking me up.

THE MEETING

We had 100 Autism Awareness event packs from NAS HQ, which was not sufficient as we had sold 120 tickets for the event (and had a significant waiting list) an also wanted the people who would be running stalls to have packs. In addition to these the bags (thick brown paper with comfortable but robust handles) were to contain a balloon, a pen, various stand alone leaflets and an NAS flag (placed flag end up so a wide flag rather than a narrow stick pointed out of the bag).

In addition to this activity various timings were confirmed (some setup will be done the night before the event, and everyone who has a stand and/or will be involved in running the event will be expected to arrive for doors opening at 8AM, so that there is no overlap between us setting up for the day and people arriving for the event from about 8:45AM onwards (starts at 9AM).

Before we got started on assembling the ‘goodie bags’ I spotted a couple of interesting cushions…

THE JOURNEY HOME

Very uneventful fortunately. One of the group planned to visit her mother-in-law who lives not that far from my place, so I got a lift as far as Loke Road and had a walk of under 15 minutes to get home. After lunch, the weather remaining bright and sunny I decided it  would be foolish to remain in the flat and took myself out for…

AN AFTERNOON WALK

Since the river was one place I had not been in the morning I started by heading to the point at which the Purfleet meets the river.

From South Quay I headed past old Boal Quay to the Nar Outfall, and the structure I have dubbed Cormorant platform. Today there was only one cormorant about.

I made my way home by way of the parkland, enhancing my stock of moorhen pictures along the way.

About Autism

Various bits of autism related stuff, including an account of a talk by Mel Bruce for NAS West Norfolk, and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Last night I attended a talk given by Dr Mel Bruce, a clinical psychologist at Starfish Plus. There are also a few other things I will be covering in this post.

MEL BRUCE TALK

The talk was scheduled to run from 7-9PM, and I was required to be there (the scout hut on Beulah Street, as so often for NAS West Norfolk events) early to help with the setup. Mel opened proceedings with a brief account of what she and her team do, and who they work with, before taking questions from the floor. One of the things Mel mentioned when talking about communication was the use of a system of communication cards, which would work rather as the coloured badges at AutismCon did – in that case red was for “don’t talk to me unless it is an emergency”, yellow for “don’t initiate conversations but you can respond if I talk to you” and green for “I am happy to talk”, with freedom to change according to how you are feeling at any given moment (I selected a green badge and stuck with it the whole day as it happens). A great quote which showed how involved she is with the autistic community “Don’t do anything about us without us”. Another excellent point she made was about referring to special interests rather than obsessions.

Although this talk did not deal with issues that relate directly to me, because it was aimed at parents of autistic children, and therefore I maintained a purely listening brief, I enjoyed the evening, and am looking forward to meeting Mel again at the Positive Autism Awareness Conference NAS West Norfolk are holding at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn on April 15th. Meantime, we have connected on twitter.

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Clinical psychologist Mel Bruce introducing the session
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A decent turnout for the event.
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the first of four shots featuring posters.

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A POTENTIAL MEETING WITH
SIR HENRY BELLINGHAM MP

Just a brief mention of the fact that following a very unsatisfactory response by Sir Henry Bellingham on the subject of the cut to ESA, in which he claimed to be talking to lots of local groups moves are afoot to organize a meeting between ourselves and him. Further information about his record as an MP can be found here (warning – it makes grim reading).

ON DIAGNOSES

This section is here because it was recently brought to my attention that there are still problems with doctors being unwilling to diagnose autistic spectrum conditions (ASC for short) and in some cases unwilling to refer people for diagnosis. In the nine and a half years since I was diagnosed (25 years  later than I should have been but that is another story) my life has improved hugely in all sorts of ways.

My message to doctors faced with people seeking a diagnosis of an autistic spectrum is this: if you feel unable to do this yourself, then refer the patient to someone who can. To point blank refuse even to refer someone is unacceptable and indefensible.

HELPING THE NATIONAL AUTISTIC SOCIETY WITH A PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN

The National Autistic Society are running a Public Awareness Campaign, to which I am pleased to say I have been able to contribute. In answering the questions I was sent as part of this I referred on many occasions to things that happened before I was diagnosed, precisely because (see above), things have been so much better since I was diagnosed.

A VICTORY – #JUSTICEFORKAYLEB

Yes – a good news story to end the text section of this post. Kayleb Moon-Robinson, a 6th  grade student with autism, was facing life with a conviction for a felony offence. Following a prolonged campaign, all charges against him have been dismissed. More details are available as follows:

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New build in keeping with its surroundings
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I would have started work on this ghastly, out of place building with a wrecking ball, but I am glad to see that something is being done.

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Change point – this is the last of the daytime photos – others were taken on the way to the Mel Bruce talk.

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