Understanding Autism for Healthcare Professionals

Understand how a patient may benefit from having an autism diagnosis.

Learn the ways in which sensory processing can be affected by autism and the impact this can have on an autistic patient’s appointment or medical procedure.

Learn how atypical sensory processing can affect an autistic person’s experience of pain.

Autistic people may struggle to communicate their pain to others. Learn strategies to help you understand what your autistic patient is trying to tell you.

Learn why an autistic patient may have difficulty communicating and understand ways to improve your conversations with them.

Social imagination helps people to think flexibly. Autistic people may have weak social imagination. Learn how weak social imagination might affect an autistic patient’s understanding of a medical situation.

Autistic people can have unusually intense interests. It’s important to understand that they may have found it upsetting to have altered their daily routine to attend an appointment.

Learn why social interaction can be exhausting for an autistic patient and their need for time alone in order to recover.

Understand and recognise repetitive behaviours (such as ‘stimming’) which are common in autistic people.

Understand why it might be helpful to learn what an autistic person’s learning style is and how to incorporate this in your interactions with them.

Autistic people often have weak executive function. Understand about the problems that weak executive function can cause for an autistic person.

Be made aware of the tendency for autistic people to focus on details rather than the bigger picture.

Autistic people are likely to have different thought processes from neurotypical people. Learn how their different thought processes can cause them to feel anxious and misunderstand you.

Learn how to help an autistic patient to better understand the information you are giving them.

Understand how autistic people experience the different life stages (such as leaving home, retiring or coping with a change in health). Understand how an autistic person often needs support when these changes occur.

Understand that whatever lifestyle an autistic person has, they often need help to manage their problems (such as anxiety, masking and ‘social energy’).

In this module we will remind ourselves that every autistic person has their own different problems. We will also look at family relationships, advocacy and how an autistic individual can achieve a good sense of wellbeing.

We will look at how you can apply all the principles you have learned so far to working practically in the healthcare system.

Every practitioner who has learned about autism will have their own individual way of applying that knowledge in real life situations. These case studies will provide you with some clinical scenarios to think about.