April 2

An autistic perspective on April the Second, with some important links.

This post is mainly geared to sharing, since I have made some good connections today, but I am also going to say a bit about today and what it should really be about.

APRIL THE SECOND

Today is offically dubbed ‘World Autism Awareness Day’, a designation that for reasons I explained two days ago I find difficult to accept. I will be in town for the turning on of special lights tonight, but they will be in the colours of the National Autistic Society, and as branch secretary of NAS West Norfolk I can fully accept that – had the lights going on been blue I would have refused to have anything to do with the event as a matter of principle.

Autistic people should be accepted for who they are. Regrets about who/what they are not have no place in acceptable discourse about autism, neither should attempts to change important parts of who we are. If an autistic person stims, let them do so. If an autistic person has special interests allow them to pursue those interests, do not try to wean them away from those interests.

The narrative has to move forward – at barest minimum Autism Acceptance is mandatory, and as I have said before Autistic Pride is not inappropriate either. Take note of the ‘spectrum infinity’ device that heads this blog, and of the different version I use for my equivalent of business cards.

SOME SHARES FROM TODAY

I start this section with a thank you to Phoebe MD, who has once again opened up her blog for others to promote their own blogs – do take the opportunity thus offered by clicking here.

My own interaction with the above blog has already brought to my attention a lovely post which is part of my reason for creating this post:

Yuvi MK, who runs the artwarlock blog, has produced a post in which she displays World Autism Awareness Day Doodle Cards, which you can read by clicking here – and I urge you to do so.

My other autism related share for today comes from the wonderful neurodivergent rebel, who should need no introduction to readers of this blog. She takes the subject of Autism Awareness Month head on and explains just why autistic people are so averse to ‘lighting up blue’. Please read the piece by clicking here.

Finally for this section, I am focussing on one of my own special interests: cricket. This time last year, with the first coronavirus lock down in full force and no knowing when there would next be live cricket is creating a series of ‘all time XIs‘ posts, which started with one for each of the 18 first class counties. On April 2 last year my subject was Kent – click here to read in full. In retrospect I would make one change to my chosen XI – Underwood in for Blythe, because Underwood’s bowling method would lend extra variety to the attack – Blythe, like Woolley was a very orthodox left arm spinner.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Autistic Pride Month

Preparing for April, a.k.a Autism Awareness Month with a post that highlights the problems with the ‘awareness narrative’, suggests some improvements and provides links to a couple of other good autism themed posts.

April is upon us, and to the non-autistic world April is Autism Awareness Month. In this post I look at some problems with the ‘autism awareness’ narrative and put forward an alternative viewpoint. After my own bit I will share a couple of important related links.

THE PROBLEMS WITH AUTISM AWARENESS

At its most innocuous the ‘awareness’ narrative is simply laughably inadequate for the purpose. People being aware of autism, its challenges and its benefits (yes, the latter do exist) is at most a start. At its worst, as exemplified by a USian organization that is still allowed to call itself an ‘autism charity’ but is in truth an anti-autistic hate group (I will not sully these pages with the name of said organization, suffice it to say that if you see anything with featuring a blue puzzle piece avoid it like the plague) it is deeply destructive, contributing to the ‘othering’ of autistic people.

AUTISM ACCEPTANCE –
THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM

Autism acceptance means accepting autistic people as people, allowing us to be ourselves and express our talents and individuality in our own ways, not seeking to make us fit. Not only is forcing square pegs into round holes counter productive, you are highly likely to break the pegs in the process. If I write any further autism specific posts in the course of this next month I will not again mention ‘autism awareness’ – I have done so here only to highlight its inadequacies, I will be starting from a baseline of Autism Acceptance.

AUTISM APPRECIATION/ AUTISTIC PRIDE

Many of my greatest strengths come directly from being autistic, and actually what we need to see a lot more of is the talents and strengths of autistic people being appreciated. Part of that appreciation is acknowledging that we do have the talents and skills we possess in spite of being autistic, in many cases we have those skills and talents precisely because we are autistic. Look out when reading about autism for stuff written by autistic people, – there are plenty of us writing about autism and wanting to be found. Enjoy your April as much as you are able to.

TWO IMPORTANT LINKS

Kerry Anne Mendoza of The Canary has recently been diagnosed as autistic, and has produced her own piece tackling this subject, which you can read by clicking here.

Christa Holmans, aka Neurodivergent Rebel has produced an excellent piece titled “Rethinking the Way We Describe Autistic People From Problems to Possibilities“, which I highly recommend to you.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

An Autism Awareness Event At King’s Lynn Library

A brief account of today’s Autism Awarenss event at King’s Lynn Library, with some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Today at 1PM there was a gathering at King’s Lynn Library for World Autism Awareness Day, in which we talked to the library about things they could do to make themselves more accessible to autistic people and in which we got details of an autism friendly youth group that they are starting. As well as ourselves and library staff a young woman from SCIOPE was also present.

AWARENESS IS BARELY THE BEGINNING

Obviously awareness is necessary, but it should not be thought of as a goal or an endpoint – to borrow from a famous quote it is at most the end of the beginning. To be of real value it needs to proceed to acceptance, understanding of our needs and appreciation of our strengths. The library staff seem genuinely committed to helping autistic people, and they listened to all our comments. There was talk of autism friendly hours in the evening, which I think would be an excellent idea.

A CONSTRUCTIVE DAY

I feel that this event was very constructive and potentially valuable. I await practical developments with interest – as an autistic person who is a great supporter of the library I hope to be able remember today as an occasion when things moved in the right direction. I was very glad to be able to attend – as an advocate of “nothing about us without us” I always feel that I should be involved with this sort of thing, and there had been a possibility that my health would prevent that. Fortunately it did not. Now for…

PICTURES

I start with an infographic posted on the NAS Norwich facebook page by Johanna Corbyn which I consider to be excellent:

To set the scene for my own photographs that relate to this event here is the official King’s Library picture, originally posted on their facebook page:

Now we finish with some of my pictures:

P1220305 — My cards – one of the library staff accepted one.

P1220306 — I was able to photograph various pictures on the wall.

P1220312 — Details of the Autism Friendly Youth Group

P1220315 — The autism related diksplay in the entrance foyer.

P1220317 — A shot showing the war memorial and the library.

Autism Acceptance/Appreciation Month

An introduction to Autism Acceptance Month/ Autism Appreciation Month and a few photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Officially April is designated Autism Awareness Month. In this post I will give my view as to why this designation should be rejected and what the alternative, as articulated by autistic people should be.

AWARENESS

Firstly the notion of ‘Autism Awareness’ is tainted by the mere fact of who the main organisation pushing it are, who I will not name here. Suffice to say that their many misdeeds include being responsible for the video nasty “I Am Autism”, and that they are associated with the colour blue and with the puzzle piece symbol. I am glad that I am separated from them by the width of an ocean!

Secondly, even if the first point above did not apply, ‘awareness’ is simply not sufficient as a bannerline aim. Awareness does not equate to understanding, and that latter is the barest minimum that is required…

UNDERSTANDING, ACCEPTANCE, APPRECIATION, RESPECT

Understanding of autism is merely a good starting point (and there are ton of places where you can find autistic people writing about autism, some which I shall list later). It needs to lead to acceptance of us for who we are, appreciation of our good points and respect for us as human beings.

PLACES TO LEARN ABOUT AUTISM

This list is not (never in the proverbial million years) exhaustive, but it gives you some good pointers.

Laina both at the silentwaveblog and her sharing site Lainas Collection
Eve Reiland at Internationalbadassactivists provides huge numbers of links to important pieces about Autism.
The Neurodivergent Rebel is a great source of information.
Meesh at stimtheline has produced some great stuff.
Fire Bright Star Soul, written by an autistic woman who also has an autistic child.
Autism Mom who writes about her experiences of life with her autistic son, The Navigator.
Actually Autistic Blogs List – exactly what it says on the tin.

#REDINSTEAD, #LIGHTITUPGOLD & THE RAINBOW INFINITY SYMBOL

The organization I refuse to name tells people to #lightitupblue, for which reason that colour is off-limits (except when it appears in photos) to this site at least for the month of April. The first two elements of the title of this section refer to alternatives. This blog is following #RedInstead simply because gold letters don’t really stand out against a white background. The Rainbow Infinity Symbol, a customized version of which heads this blog, while another appears on my personal cards, is an excellent alternative to the discredited puzzle piece for the role of autism symbol. Here courtesy of stimtheline is the Autistic Bill of Rights:

PHOTOGRAPHS

Autism Events V: Saturday in London Part 3

My final blog post about the Anna Kennedy Autism Expo.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the fifth and final installment in my Autism Events series, concluding my account of the Anna Kennedy Autism Expo a week ago yesterday (still to come are some related posts on my London transport themed website and a page on this site bringing everything together).

THREE MORE TALKS

I will handle these talks in exact chronological order, starting with…

THE AUTISTIC DAD

This one was slightly problematic for me, although I welcome another autistic person being given the opportunity to speak. The biggest problem I had lay in his comments about vaccines, which I found particularly hard to stomach given that since he is autistic there is an obvious genetic component to his son’s autism. This talk did not inspire as much as I had hoped, and a week on I do not feel any happier about it.

SPORT FOR CONFIDENCE

This was a wonderful talk by Lyndsey Barrett, a former netball international (she had a very serious illness which nearly killed her, but is now back playing netball to a good level although she has not yet been recalled by England) and founder of the eponymous Sport for Confidence.

AN EXCELLENT FINISH

The final talk was from one of the people from Green Board Games (see my first post about this event for more) and although I was very tired by this stage of the day I thoroughly enjoyed it.

HOMEWARD BOUND

Leaving the event I headed back to Uxbridge station, and got a Metropolitan line train into London, arriving at King’s Cross in good time to catch the 18:44, arriving into King’s Lynn at 20:22. Here are a few pics from the return journey, although the battery in my camera was running on fumes by that stage of the day.

Hillingdon footbridge — This footbridge is at Hillingdon, one stop out from Uxbridge.

Rayner's Lane buidings III — The station building at Rayners Lane, which functions as a bridge between the platforms as well is one **Charles Holden’s** most famous.

chilternrailways.co.uk — Chiltern Railways, with which the Metropolitan is closely integrated. **Chiltern Railways**‘ historical predecessor, the Great Central railway was a creation of Sir Edward Watkin, who also ;played a massive role in the Metropolitan’s history. This train is at Harow-on-the-Hill.

Distant Wembley — A distant view of **Wembley Stadium**.

Autism Events IV: Saturday in London Part 2

Takes my story of the Anna Kennedy Autism Expo up to the end of the first of the talks that I attended.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the fourth post in my Autism Events series. This is Part 2 of my coverage of the Anna Kennedy Autism Expo which took place at the Eastern Gateway Building, Brunel University. For those joining the series at this point the previous post are:

This post will cover the remainder of the stalls at the event and the first of the talks that I attended.

AROUND THE HALL

This is a story that will be told largely via photographs…

Oojamabobs — Yes folks – a whole stall devoted to selling fidget/stim toys.

PAUL ISAACS TALK

Paul is autistic himself, and his talk was both informative and inspiring. Notice that as with the Autism Anglia event in Norwich this event gave autistic voices lots of opportunity to be heard. Here are some pictures from this talk.

Meeting room I — Because of the shape of the meeting room it was equipped with two big screens, one for each half of it.

Paul Isaacs talk — Paul’s talk on the screen.

Ready to go — Paul ready to start his talk, while event organiser Anna Kennedy watches from the corner. She kept all the speakers informed as to how they were doing timewise.

Asperger and Autist brains — Autistic and Aspergian traits.

Aspie traits — Close up of the Aspergian traits list

Personhood — Although I choose when using such descriptions to refer to myself as an autistic person, with ‘person’ coming after ‘autistic’ I am with Paul in asserting my personhood.

Pauls Books — Paul’s considerable output.

Autism Events III: Saturday in London Part 1

The first of several posts about the Anna Kennedy Autism Expo.

INTRODUCTION

Greetings from a cold, snowy King’s Lynn. Welcome to the third in this mini-series of Autism Events posts, following on from:

Autism Events I: Norwich
Autism Events II: Norwich part 2

Most of this post covers events from a week ago yesterday, but before I get into the main body of it there is on little thing I need to attend to first:

AN AMENDMENT AND AN APOLOGY

For those of you who saw the original version of Autism Events II, you will notice should you revisit it that I have removed many of Amanda Hind’s slides from it. This was at her specific request, on the course of a very friendly twitter exchange. I have never previously been asked to remove photographs of slides from a post, but I fully acknowledge Amanda’s right to make the request, and I acted on it very promptly. This is by way of both explaining why I edited that post after it had been up for a while and apologizing in this blog for publishing more of Amanda’s slides than she was happy to see published.

THE ANNA KENNEDY AUTISM EXPO – GETTING THERE

The event was taking place at Brunel University’s Eastern Gateway building in Uxbridge. This meant getting a train and changing at King’s Cross. The Metropolitan line route from King’s Cross to Uxbridge is more direct than that of the Piccadilly line, and the Metropolitan line platforms take less long to get to from the railway line, so I opted for that route. I also decided that even though it would almost certainly mean not being there for the very start of the event that I would get the 6:54 rather than the 5:54 from King’s Lynn. I will be covering the Metropolitan line element of the journey in detail on my London transport themed website, but here are some photos from the journey…

Display board — On the platofrm – note that mine is the second train due in.

Chesham train I — The chesham train – doors open.

Concertina section of articulated stock — The new stock operating on the Circle, District, Hammersmth & Cty and Metropolitan lines is articulated in the manner of Swedish **Tunnelbana** stock rather than using old-fashioned bogie couplings.

Route Map KCSP II — The route map at King’s Cross St Pancras

The Metropolitan line route map on the train.

A Jubilee line train (from just before Finchley Road to just after Wembley Park the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines run side by side)

A Piccadilly line train (from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines run in tandem).

Uxbridge II — A roundel at Uxbridge station.

Uxbridge Clock — The clock at Uxbridge station.

Stained glass, Uxbridge — Stained glass windows at Uxbridge station.

Station frontage, Uxbridge — The outside frontage of the station

The walk from Uxbridge Station to the venue was supposed to take about 25 minutes, but I went the wrong way at first, so it took me a bit longer than that. I arrived at the venue a bit late, but soon got stuck into visiting all the stalls, to see what people were doing and to tell people about myself and NAS West Norfolk. I will now share a few thoughts and photos from a couple of those stalls.

GREEN BOARD GAME COMPANY

I spoke to two of the people from this company, which creates games aimed specifically at helping SEND children, including autistic children. I got to sample a couple of the games as well – they look very good to me. Please note that the title of this section is formatted as a link to their homepage.

Shaperise — This is a viciously hard game – you have 30 seconds to look at the shape and memorise it and you then have to use the blocks to construct it.

Corner'd — This is tough in the early stages, but as more spaces are filled it gets easier to place your pieces.

Qbitz — This one can be played in two ways. Either require the players to memorise the shape they will be building or leave it on display. You have to place as many blocks as you can without rotating them, then when no more can be used towards making the shape pick the unused blocks up and roll them like dice to reveal new faces, and so on until you have completed the shape (the completed shape here, using light blue blocks was the work of yours truly.

JOELY COLMER

Joely Colmer is an autistic woman whose website I linked to via the title of ths section. As well as her website she is the author of a book about her experiences, “Aspergerworld: My Fairy Jam Jar”.

SOME PHOTOS FROM THE VENUE

I will end this post with some of the photographs I took of general stuff at the venue:

light four 1 — These last two poctures are of a boat that hangs from the ceiling of that building.

light four two — It is of the type referred to in rowing circles as a ‘light four’ (there are two types of four person rowing boats, the light as seen here, and the ‘tub four’).

Autism Events II: Norwich part 2

The second in my series of posts about Autism events I have attended recently.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this second in my series of posts about recent Autism events that I have attended. The opening piece can be seen here. Before moving on to the main body of the post I include a petition from today. It was posted on change.org, and the screenshot below contains details and functions as a link:

THE STORY SO FAR

During the first post in this series I set out what the series was going to be about, put up a mini-time line of the days covered and started my coverage of the Autism Anglia Information Sharing Event, reaching the end of Sian Hutchings’ talk. This post takes us up to the end of that event. Here are a few pictures from that event:

Cupola — This cupola caught my attention.

Research stand — One of the stalls I visited – we had a very positive little discussion

Elephant 1 — This elephant is a legacy from what was once a Norwich display of the creatures.

NADV — Scope and NAS West Norfolk are working together on various projects, and this wristband is a product of one of them (there is also a matching key fob and small button badge). The message, conveyed simply and powerfully is “NOT ALL DISABILITIES ARE VISIBLE”

SESSION 3: ACTIVATE

Just in case anyone was wondering this has nothing to do with the vile Tory offshoot of the same name (an organisation of such vileness that it is known in certain circles as “Active Hate”). This Activate is a very different organisation, devoted to helping vulnerable people. Here are a couple of pictures:

This was a very interesting session and I went to lunch in good spirits. The lunch was excellent – decent sandwiches, crisps and a drink. Then I had one more session to attend.

SESSION 4: AMANDA HIND

Amanda Hind’s session, on Puberty, Sex and Relationships Education and Autistic Girls, was packed full of interesting and important stuff. Before letting my photographs take over, I will say that she is an autistic mother of two autistic children (it was actually her son’s diagnosis that prompted her to investigate on her own behalf) and that she is a fantastic speaker. At her request I am only displaying a handful of the slides…

The Stage 2 Auditorium, Norwich Theatre Royal

Hexagonal array of bulbs — Using the zoom lens to capture the hexagonal array of bulbs in the overhead lights

About Me — The first three slides of the title slide cover the ‘back story’

FINAL ACT – FEEDBACK

One of the things contained in the packs we were each given on arrival at the venue was a feedback form. I filled mine in after this last talk, and suffice to say it was all positive. As I was staying in Norwich for an evening meeting I then decamped to the Millennium Library, very close to the theatre, to unwind for a bit, and prepare myself for the evening. All in all this was a very positive experience, and I left the event in a very good (if tired) frame of mind.

Autism Events I: Norwich

The first in a series of posts about a couple of autism events that I ahve attemded recently.

INTRODUCTION

I have had the good fortune to attend two autism events in the last few days. NAS West Norfolk, of which I am branch secertary funded my attendance at both events, and so I travelled with a bundle of NAS West Norfolk leaflets as well as my own personal cards. This is the first of a series of blog posts I will be writing about these events, and therefore includes a…

TIME LINE OF THE LAST FEW DAYS

Thursday daytime: Autism Anglia information sharing event at the Theatre Royal, Norwich.
Thursday evening: public meeting on trans liberation at the Vauxhall Community Centre, Norwich
Friday daytime: work day.
Friday evening: supper at my aunt’s house.
Saturday all day: Anna Kennedy Autism Expo at the Eastern Gateway Building, Brunel University, nr Uxbridge

I hope that the above makes it clear why I am only just starting this series of posts and why I still have a large number of photos from the last few days to edit.

THE AUTISM ANGLIA EVENT

The bus ran a bit late, which meant that I arrived at the venue later than I would have liked. However, I was in time to get into the first talk I had booked for, Alan Bicknell of Autism Anglia talking about “The Uniqueness of Autism”. I impressed the speaker with three useful interventions – first up responsing to his request for a ‘guess’ as to how many people in the UK were likely to be on the autistic spectrum. I reasoned in Holmesian fashion that given the UK’s overall population and the popularly reckoned instance of autism being 1 in 68 the figure was likely to be somewhere in the region of 1,000,000. I was in the right ball park, with the speaker’s own reckoning being somewhere in the region of 800,000. My second intervention was to identify the author of the the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine‘ stories (Reverend W Awdry – his son Christopher continuing the family tradition). My third and final intervention was in response to his question “Can we all be a little bit autistic?” To which I said a very firm no, and backed this up when asked to expand on that answer by stating that ‘we are all a little bit autistic’ cheapens and demeans the very real difficulties faced by those of who are #actuallyautistic. He thanked me for making those points, and subsequently when I spoke to him after the talk he again thanked me for my contributions.

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THAT FIRST TALK

SESSION TWO: SIAN HUTCHINGS

Ms Hutchings is autistic herself, and her talk was based around her own life and experiences, before focussing on educating autistic people. This was in the same venue as the first talk I had booked to attend. Sian’s talk was absolutely amazing, and although the photographs with which I end this post give you some basic idea of it, you really had to be there to hear it.

Autism Education & Me — These big screens look a lot like giant Ipads, and as I saw when one speaker poked the screen in making a point they also work a bit like giant Ipads – he was a bit discombobulated when the next slide appeared early.

Promethean — Their size is not the only thing about this screens the connects them to giants!

Midweek Medley II

A mixed bag of bits and pieces from around the net and some of my own stuff, including photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Yes folks it is time for sharing post, including some of my own photographs. I have a lot of interesting stuff to share, starting with…

AN ANNIVERSARY OF SHAME

The bodytext of this section is in #RedInstead because it relates to Autism. To be exact, today marks 20 years since Andrew Wakefield published his “research” indicating a link between autism and vaccines. One impact his decision to go straight to the press without having his “research” peer reviewed first (it was badly flawed, and that is being kind) had was to cause measles to become a significant factor in parts of the UK as parents declined to have their children vaccinated. There can be no comparison between autism (a neurological DIFFERENCE – and don’t forget that different is not a synonym for lesser) and measles (a dangerous illness). However, in the minds of some parents, fear of autism has been sufficient to prevent them from vaccinating. Mr Wakefield has since decamped to the US (Texas to be exact), and he has just weighed in on an election in his new home, supporting the challenger against the current incumbent, republican Sarah Davis, who has supported vaccines. I am not USian, nor based in the area where this election is taking place, but if there is anything that could induce to me to vote for a republican it would the likes of Wakefield urging a vote for their opponent.

I end this section with some links:

whyevolutionistrue whose Hili Dialogue for today first gave the heads up on this anniversary
skepticalraptor who carry the story of Wakefield’s intervention in Texas politics (hat tip to Eve Reiland of internationalbadassactivists for drawing my attention to this piece)

SOME OTHER SHARES FROM THE WEB

I start with a link to a piece by John Jonasson of The Photo Bloggers, titled “En dag med uttrarna – A day with the otters” – as an aperitif here is a picture showing two of the creatures:

Having just celebrated nature with the above link, here from closer to home, is a link to a petition by the Green Party calling for a new Clean Air Act fit for the 21st century. Please sign and share.

I finish this mini section back here in Norfolk, bringing up a topic close to my heart. Stagecoach are closing their King’s Lynn depot on April 30th (a king sized betrayal of Norfolk Green, the company they bought to get that depot) and will not be running any Norfolk routes thereafter. This leaves Konect, Lynx Buses, First, Sanders Coach Services and West Norfolk Community Transport to pick up the pieces. Our bus routes are very important to us, not least since thanks to Dr Beeching our county has no train routes to speak of. Thus I bring you a 38 Degrees petition calling on the council to work with these companies to ensure that the Coasthopper service (under threat of being entirely shut down) keeps running. Please sign and share the petition, via the screenshot below:

AUTISM RELATED SHARES

There have been two posts created by people responding to my Sunshine Blogger Award nominations. Anna’s response which handles the entire brief is also titled “Sunshine Blogger Award” and is an excellent effort. I have already reblogged stimtheline’s “Sunshine Blogger Questions“, which does a magnificent job of answering my questions, and I share it once again now.

The Autism Women’s Network have recently produced a piece titled “Is Autism Speaks a Hate Group?” (spoiler: the answer is yes).

I end with a link to the petition to save the Morley House Respite Unit, which now has just over 3,200 signatures – please sign and share!

A MEETING

This meeting will be taking place in Norwich on the evening of March 8th (I will be in Norwich that day on behalf of NAS West Norfolk and will stay on for the meeting):

A TEASER

This is not too difficult IMO, from my regular source, brilliant.org:

PHOTOGRAPHS

These are all from Monday:

	Thomas on All Time XIs – England B…
	cindy knoke on All Time XIs – England B…
	All Time XIs –… on All Time XIs – Staffords…
	All Time XIs –… on All Time XIs – Surr…
	Karan Mckerrow on Changing the Politcal Lan…