This webinar on autism and social skills will be an introduction to the Autistic perspective of autism. It will introduce parents, teachers, SNAs and other practitioners to the emerging idea that Autistic children do not actually have deficits in social skills.
Together we will explore what this means for traditional “social skills” training and the impact this sort of training has on Autistic people.
Date: Mon July 4th from 6pm to 8pm Irish Time online
€25 includes access to the recording, slides and cert of completion.
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.
Sample slides:
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?
I have attended a couple of Evaleen’s courses now and also purchased a few of her books, all of which are amazing. I am a newcomer to the neurodiversity model and for me, it has been life changing. I have spent so long working for Autism Psychological Services and learnt all about the incorrect narrative which is very damaging to our community. Evaleen and her material along with other autistic advocates has made me see a whole other side to what autistic means and helped me understand myself and the autistic people I support so much more. I feel emotional attending these courses as I feel I have finally found my voice and feel validated for the first time which is life changing and empowering, so thank you Evaleen.
5/16/2022 8:16 PM
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
Content:
In this social skills webinar 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.
Please book in and we’ll send the zoom link on the day for you to join us. In the meantime have a read of Evaleen’s recent article on social skills
Additional information
Dates
In person talk Cork 25th May, Mon 4th July 6-8pm GMT, Thurs 22nd Sept