Autism and Social Skills

Description

This social skills webinar will be delivered by the author of Konnect Social skills series Evaleen Whelton. Evaleen is also founder of AUsome Training, Ireland’s first Autistic-led training company. When Evaleen first found out she was Autistic in 2014 she accepted what was said about autism and social skills. After all it explained much of her life. But then she expanded her search for information and found that actually there are differing ideas on this. There is also research which shows that Autistic people have a social communication which is specific to us. 

Evaleen is a speech and drama teacher and has developed classes for children on social skills and communication. She has authored 3 Konnect activity books for children which teaches “social skills” with a respect and appreciation for Autistic Communication. This respect and appreciation is sadly lacking from social skills training which is created under the deficit model. Her book “Standing Up for Myself” for kids aged 9-15yrs is the first book which the Therapist Neurodiversity Collective has recommended as a perfect alternative to social skills training.

What do people say about this course?

Lenny- not only insightful but makes me wish I communicated in the same way as the autistic community- so much more honest and genuine. What a better world this would make.

5/16/2022 8:05 PM

I found it so enlightening and refreshing to hear from the autistic perspective. Absolutely invaluable if you are working with, or parenting autistic people – Louise 5/16/2022 8.03pm

In this social skills course Evaleen will share her findings and ideas. She will show you that we need to appreciate and preserve the way Autistic children and adults communicate, whether that is verbally or non-verbally. When we think of autism and social skills we may think of deficits. We may not know that those ideas are now very outdated. No one needs these outdated ideas where Autistic people need to be taught and trained how to behave in social situations. These sort of antiquated ideas only harm the Autistic sense of self. They also harm otherwise beautiful relationships between Autistic and non-autistic people.

When professionals assessed the Autistic ability to interact socially they assessed this ability somewhat in isolation. They seem to have forgotten that communication is in fact a two way street. We must also assess how others interact with Autistic people. How do other people interact with us? Well, if we ask Autistic people then we learn that actually non-autistic people have a lot of work to do when it comes to interacting effectively and respectfully with us.

Because there is duality of communication then we need to learn how to meet each other half way. The first step in doing this is respecting Autistic Language and Culture. This webinar will give you an insight into Autistic communication, tips and practical ways to meet us half way and real life examples.

In the meantime have a read of Evaleen’s recent article on social skills