Café Autistíque

This event was presented in Space 0, Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Elizaveta Nosova (PhD candidate, The University of Manchester) described their Systematic Review on the views of autistic adults on early autism interventions.  The autistic community has long voiced its concerns and priorities on the interventions and support for young autistic children; research has just recently started to catch up. There will be thirteen studies, three themes, a big colourful chart, and some thoughts about implications for future research and practice.

Dr Daniel Poole (researcher) & Beatrix Butnicu (PhD candidate) (The University of Sheffield) shared their research on autistic, ADHD and neurotypical experiences of distraction. Attention is how we focus on a task while ignoring distractions. People’s attention works in different ways, and these differences can be helpful or challenging depending on the situation. To understand this better, we need ways to appropriately measure how attention varies between people. In the first part of this talk, Dr Daniel Poole shared research on autistic, ADHD and neurotypical experiences of distraction. In the second part, Beatrix Butnicu talked about her PhD research, where she is developing a way to study a theory of neurodivergent attention called monotropism, which is based on deep interest in certain topics.

• Slides: EN autistic adults on early interventions(PDF), DP Distraction (PDF)
• Audio recording (available soon)
• Video recording (available soon)

This event was presented in Space 0, Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Dr Erin Beeston described her research, entitled, “Through the looking glass”, an investigation into autistic health inequalities through the lens of an autistic researcher. Erin shared insights into her findings into autistic health inequalities. As a parent of autistic children grappling with the healthcare system, and self-diagnosed as AuDHD, Erin also reflected on parallels she’s drawn between daily life and her research.

Kathy Leadbitter and Hilary Beach then discussed their work on the REACH-ASD Trial. In this talk they described a new programme developed to support parents/carers of newly diagnosed autistic children. Supporting them to understand their child, adjust to the diagnosis, and feel resilient in the face of parenting complexities and external stressors. They presented the findings of a large trial that evaluated the programme’s impacts. Slides not yet available due to research restrictions.

Media:

• Slides 5 (PDF)
• Audio recording 3 (available soon)
• Video recording 3 (available soon)

This event was presented in Space 0, Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

It included a talk by Monique Huysamen (researcher at The Manchester Metropolitan University) where she shared findings and resources from the Supporting Autistic Adults’ Intimate Lives (SAAIL) research project. This project explored autistic people’s experiences around sex and relationships and how adult social care might do better at supporting this area of people’s lives.

Then we heard from Bill Davies (Professor at The University of Salford and autistic researcher) introduced the concept of aural diversity, starting from the observation that everyone hears differently. He then discussed the findings of a recent Defra project focussing specifically on what we know about how autistic people differ from so-called ‘normal hearing’.

Media:

• Slides 3 (PDF)
• Slides 4 (PDF)

This event was presented at The Whitworth Café, The Whitworth Gallery, Oxford Road, Manchester.

First we heard from Dr George Bendo (autistic and autism researcher at The University of Manchester) about the SPAACE project (Speech Perception by Autistic Adults in Complex Environments) and our growing understanding of listening differences among autistic individuals.

Then Katy Baldwin (clinician and researcher at The University of Manchester) discussed her work on The Haven project, designed to encourage autism-affirming spaces in secondary schools to encourage social communication and relationship building.

Media:

• Slides 1 (PDF)
• Slides 2 (PDF)