Alis Rowe's Blog, page 5

How was your weekend? (Animation)

Have you ever attempted to have a conversation with someone but their response did not make sense?

This scenario can leave an autistic person feeling confused, flustered or downright frustrated!

Watch the following short animation and see what happens to The Girl With The Curly Hair:

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How might good attention to detail affect an autistic person’s daily life?

Autistic people often have very good attention to detail. This ability can be an asset but it can also be a hindrance. Let’s consider some of the ways that good attention to detail might affect an autistic person’s daily life:

An autistic person might notice details that others do not

One of the symptoms of autism is noticing small details, patterns, sounds or smells that others do not. This can cause an autistic person to have a different experience of daily life from others.

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7 ways autistic people struggle to see the bigger picture

Seeing the bigger picture means being able to consider the entirety of a situation instead of each individual detail. It means zooming out and seeing things from a ‘bird’s eye view.’

Being able to see the bigger picture is a very useful way to think. However it requires much mental flexibility, which is a skill that autistic people often struggle with.

Let’s take a look at some examples of the different ways that an autistic person may struggle to see the bigger picture and what effect this has on some different situations. (Each example makes a slightly different point, although the points do overlap.)

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Why is social interaction difficult for autistic people?

The way an autistic person experiences social interaction is essentially the result of the other three social difficulties that they have, which are: communication differences, weak social imagination and unusually intense interests.

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The importance of being given a clear explanation

The Girl With The Curly Hair was working at her first job in a science measurement and testing company. During her time at this job, she encountered many confusing situations because of her autism (that neither she nor her employer were aware of at the time). Let’s have a look at two of these confusing situations and think about why they were confusing and what would have made them less confusing (if everyone had been aware of her autistic traits)…

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What is meant by ‘autism is an invisible condition?’

When learning about autism, it is common to come across the description that autism is an ‘invisible’ condition.

One way of understanding what this means is to think about autism in comparison to other disabilities. For instance, when a person is in a wheelchair, this is a visible sign that they have difficulty walking. Similarly, a guide dog is a visible sign that indicates a person is visually impaired. In comparison, there are no visible signs that a person may be autistic.

Here’s another way to consider the idea that autism is invisible:

Many autistic people will have already devised their own strategies and coping mechanisms for dealing with their difficulties. Therefore, to the outside world, it is not obvious that they actually have underlying challenges.

There are two main points to take away from this:

An autistic person can appear very ‘normal’, neurotypical or competent, however this appearance is only because they are using learned strategies to help them to cope. It is easy for others to forget, or not recognise at all, that a person is autistic.An autistic person may have unusual behaviours which causes others to think that they are being aloof or a bit “difficult”. These behaviours however, are usually a sign that they are struggling.

Here are some examples:

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“It’s not obvious to me!”

So many things are not obvious to me! I find this a serious impairment as I go about my day to day activities.

I often feel bewildered in a situation because I am not sure what to do. Even if somebody has told me what to do, often their instructions do not make sense.

In the following scenario, the phlebotomist has given The Girl With The Curly Hair – what he considers to be – a very simple instruction. However, she misunderstands the instruction because it wasn’t obvious to her what he wanted her to do:

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Should you think before you speak?

One day, somebody asked me whether I could perform a task for them on the following day. Almost automatically and without really thinking, I replied “Yes.” The person thanked me, smiled and went away. I was left feeling stressed and flustered.

I also felt a little frustrated with myself. Whenever I respond to something immediately, I always feel I should have known better. When I respond immediately, I tend to find myself agreeing to do things that I would rather not do.

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How might autistic people manage their time off?

I was once contracted to work at a science measurement and testing company for 12 months. This was a full time job role and included 28 days’ annual leave. I did not take any annual leave for 11 months. I remember my manager approaching me at some point during my tenth month to remind me that I still had all my holiday days left and that I ought to take them before I left the company.

In the end, I chose to finish my contract by leaving the company approximately one month sooner than my official contract end date. Effectively, I used up all 28 days of annual leave in one go, which caused me to leave sooner than planned.

I started thinking about why I had chosen to end things this way. What was the real reason I had chosen to use my annual leave like this? I came to the conclusion that my decision was really part of a broader issue relating to the difficulties I have to do with changes in routine and transitions.

Let’s consider what my thought processes were and also make some general comments relating to autism.

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The post How might autistic people manage their time off? appeared first on The Girl with the Curly Hair.

The Posters (animation)

When you allow a bit of time to pass, you often see a situation from a different angle. I watched this animation from a couple of years ago and it sparked some totally new ideas:

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you will receive a free Autism Alert Card worth £6!

The post The Posters (animation) appeared first on The Girl with the Curly Hair.