A social enterprise helping people on the autistic spectrum and the people around them.
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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:
How to feel more connected with the world
Posted: March 4, 2018
Lots of people on the autistic spectrum feel very lonely and isolated. I have been thinking about one way that a person might be able to feel more connected to the world. There are other things people can do, but here is something I haven't talked about much before.
Planning in advance vs spontaneous activities
Posted: February 28, 2018
There is a big problem with planning in advance and agreeing to things ahead of time, and that problem is, that it allows anxiety to accumulate and often means that I end up panicking and cancelling. Let's have a look at this in more detail and consider in which sort of situations planning in advance might be helpful vs when it might not be.
How do I know if someone will want to talk to me?
Posted: February 19, 2018
I sometimes want to interact with someone but I am unsure how to. There are lots of worries that go through my mind any time I am about to initiate an interaction with someone (be it a colleague or even a friend). 'Working' interactions By 'working' interactions I mean interactions with colleagues, peers or strangers rather than friends. These interactions are most difficult when face to face in a public setting and there are lots of other things going on (for example, we're in a shop, in the office, or in a doctor's waiting room). I cannot read a person's body language to be able to tell if they are going to hear what I say, if they are even going to recognise me (if it's someone I don't know/know well), or to work out whether they are busy or not and therefore do they even have time to speak to me, or will I just be disturbing them?
Improving productivity using routines and schedules
Posted: February 9, 2018
I had a brief conversation with someone recently and, like lots of things, it annoyed me (lots of things annoy me). The person was asking me what I was up to. When I listed what I was doing and the time I was doing it at (I said something like "I'm going home now because I'm going to be late for dinner, which I like to eat at 5pm"), she did a big grin and said, "It's all about schedules with you!!!" The reason this comment annoyed me was because it reminded me that lots of people play down a very serious matter. Note, this was all in my head, she hadn't given me any true reason to think that she was playing it down. However, I do know that many people I've come across in the past have made similar remarks to me and it always ends up with a bit of banter and teasing by them, because they think my "like" of schedules and routines is a bit of a laughing matter. I understand that people are trying to be friendly and affectionate with me, but I do sometimes wish that people took my "like" (which, if they took the time to find out more, they would realise is actually a 'need') of schedules and routines more seriously. Maybe I just wish that people took a bit more time to understand why schedules and routines are so important, so that they had more empathy, and then I wouldn't mind the teasing so much. But so many people view schedules and routines as very superficial, flexible things... "It's only a few minutes late, stop worrying!" or "Come on now, it's good for you to do things outside your comfort zone sometimes!"
How to be more resilient
Posted: February 3, 2018
Resilience ('the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties') is an extremely helpful character trait for any human being to have. With the hypothesis that a person with an ASD has more difficulties than a neurotypical person, I would very much say that resilience may be an even more vital trait for us to possess. So how can we help autistic people become more resilient? Here are the 9 things you might need. I have recently come across something called Nine Things All Young People Need by Professor Michael Ungar. These are 9 things thought to make any person have resilience. I thought I would look at each of these things and highlight ones that are likely to be missing for a person who is autistic and give some ideas on how they could be achieved or adapted. The overall aim being - how can a person who is autistic best achieve these 9 things and hence become a more resilient person?
The benefits for people on the spectrum doing less
Posted: January 25, 2018
What is the definition of the word 'busy'? It means 'having a great deal to do.' I've noticed that lots of neurotypical people seem to thrive on describing themselves as having a "very busy" life. I'm sure you also hear the same comments I do, people saying that they are or have been so busy, and they say it so proudly! People also seem to have the same impression of me, that I am very busy. But actually, my life is very minimalist and quiet. Sometimes I feel that I am busy but I think that the feeling of busyness I have is less to do with the number of things I am doing and more to do with the amount of energy it takes for me to do things? In this article I'll talk about why people on the autistic spectrum might benefit from a less 'busy' life in comparison to many neurotypical people who seem to desire and enjoy having busy lives.
The 4 types of communicator
Posted: January 10, 2018
I've been reading a lot about communication (not specifically in regards to autism, just general communication) recently and through my research I discovered that there are considered to be 4 main types of communicator according to something called the VAK model. They are: Visual Auditory Feeling Auditory Digital Each type can be further broken down into 1) the choice of words somebody uses and 2) how they best understand information. Let's look in more detail about this.
Cues for better mental health
Posted: January 2, 2018
I consider a cue to be a reminder or an instruction. Cues are incredibly helpful for people on the autistic spectrum. It might be a good idea to come up with some cues that you or your loved one can use. Cues can be helpful for reminding us to do physical or practical tasks, such as reminding us to post a letter or to do a certain piece of work - but that's not the limits. For people on the autistic spectrum, cues can do a lot more.