A social enterprise helping people on the autistic spectrum and the people around them.
Blog
4 Conversation techniques to add to your social script
Posted: 10 months ago
Many autistic people create for themselves a 'social script' to help them know how to interact in social situations. A social script is a guide for planning what to do and say inside a social setting.
The Girl With The Curly Hair uses a social script whenever she meets up with her friends. Specifically, she uses 4 conversation techniques:
The 3 factors needed to succeed in any situation
Posted: October 17, 2018
There are three very important factors that impact on whether or not I will have a positive and successful engagement. These factors are relevant to any and every engagement - work, hobbies, friends, dating, meetings, etc. It might be very helpful for you to recognise what these three things are. You might find you can incorporate something into a situation that you're already finding very hard and find that it becomes much easier; or you might find it explains why you struggle with one thing yet excel at something else...
Getting into and staying inside your comfort zone
Posted: October 9, 2018
My last blog article about comfort zones still left me thinking a lot! I started to wonder how easy it is to make something fall within your comfort zone. I mentioned that none of the jobs I've had have ever been a part of my comfort zone. If they had been, I think I would've stayed working at those jobs for a lot longer. All of this has inspired this blog article... If you have been following my work for a while you have probably worked out that I learn a lot from graphs. I think I am a very graphic learner. They suit my way of thinking. So have a look at these graphs I have drawn: Is it good to get outside your comfort zone?
Posted: October 2, 2018
There is some thinking that getting out of your comfort zone has lots of benefits. First, what exactly do we mean by 'comfort zone'? It generally means the activities we do that make us feel safe and comfortable, as opposed to activities that make us feel anxious and stressed. I think maybe when we think about comfort zones for autistic people or people with disabilities, they need to be thought about a bit differently. For example, I'm not sure getting out of my own comfort zone is always a good idea. In fact, I'd say that most of the time for me now, it's a bad idea. Defining your comfort zone I personally have a small number of situations that are inside my comfort zone. My house is obviously my comfort zone. My local area is my comfort zone. The way I choose to commute, by my bike, is my comfort zone. The places that I most frequently visit are my comfort zones. My routine is definitely my comfort zone. My hobbies and the way I do them are my comfort zone. My family is inside my comfort zone. My friends are inside my comfort zone (but only in certain contexts, see later). My places of work are probably just outside the edge of my comfort zone.
Another way of looking at “challenging behaviour”
Posted: September 24, 2018
Throughout my life I have found myself in trouble on numerous occasions. I think this is because other people think that my behaviour is strange, naughty or thoughtless and sometimes the things that I do come as a complete surprise to others. But when people look a bit deeper and try to understand me, my behaviour completely makes sense. I’m no longer “difficult” but someone that is very anxious and has quite severe and complex communication difficulties. The issues surrounding my behaviour usually happen because I have difficulty communicating with people and they have difficulty communicating with me. I have three excellent examples I can think of. The first is when my workplace was organising the local community fair. This is a fair where local shops each have a stand and the fair attracts many people from the community. My workplace had a stand and my colleagues had asked me whether I could help out on the stand. My immediate thought was "no!" I tried to say to my colleagues that I wasn't able to help out but somehow this communication was either lost or ignored and, as what normally happens, I ended up doing something I didn't want to do - in this case, I ended up helping out on the stand at the fair.
What is my personality and what is my autism?
Posted: September 9, 2018
I was once asked by someone, "How do I know if my behaviour is because I'm ASD or is it merely who I am?" It was a good question and one that I have many times pondered over myself. There's not a clear or easy answer.Being different affects mental health, but what can we do about it as a society?
Posted: September 2, 2018
Being autistic is just one way that someone can be ‘different.’ People can be different in various other ways such as their personality, abilities, sexuality, race, age, gender… etc. These are known as primary characteristics of diversity, which are inborn and cannot be changed. There are also secondary characteristics of diversity such as where someone… Join The Curly Hair Project Community Today This article and our podcasts are available only t…
Autism and strange diets
Posted: August 26, 2018
People with ASD may have strange diets and atypical attitudes towards eating. A serious complication of this can be a person having an eating disorder illness. Sometimes though, these habits are just normal and make sense if you remember that the person has ASD. Here is some insight into strange diets, problematic consequences and potential strategies to these. I'll also note some of the possible positives of atypical eating habits.
Why might making friends be difficult for autistic people?
Posted: August 19, 2018
I understand that lots of autistic people don't have much trouble making friends, their difficulties are more to do with keeping them. I can relate to why keeping friends can be hard, but personally I think I have more difficulty making friends. In this article I will look at some possible reasons why this is and suggest some appropriate strategies.
Impatience vs attention to detail
Posted: August 13, 2018
I often find myself in a bit of a dilemma. Like many autistic people, my natural way of being is to be a perfectionist with a strong attention to detail. Through working, I have learned that the primary problem with being this way is that it can slow you down and really halt progress. This… Join The Curly Hair Project Community Today This article and our podcasts are available only to members of our community. If you would like to continue to read this article, along with receiving…