Join in with Autism Hour

Yes it's back! From today and for the rest of the week, around 10,000 retailers have signed up for Autism Hour. Last year there were 5,000 retailers so this is a massive increase in helping people on the autism spectrum and making the public more aware of autism.

For autistic people the shopping experience can be a very stressful time with for too much information to try and process all at once. This can leave people feeling like they would rather avoid shopping altogether and leading to feelings of isolation. 

So how can retailers help? Well by.....

• turning down the music in the store and also any other overwhelming noise such as tannoy announcements.
• dimming the lights, especially fluorescent lighting which can be too much for an autistic person.
• sharing information about autism with employees to help provide a positive experience for their customers.
• share information about autism to customers too, helping everyone to have that greater understanding.

Some retailers are providing an Autism Hour for a lot longer than one week but by highlighting Autism Hour within this week, well it may highlight other retailers to take part on a regular basis. After all this helps the shops by encouraging more customers to shop and most of all helps people on the autistic spectrum and their families.

So you can support Autism Hour by going along to your local shops and if you know of anywhere that isn't taking part maybe you could encourage them to. There are resources on the National Autistic Society website at
www.autism.org.uk
and you can also go on there and search for local shops in your area who are taking part in Autism Hour this week.

Can I just say a big thank you to all the organisations taking part, you are really helping in a big way!!

Thank you for reading today, pop back tomorrow for some tv chat on Pass the Remote Sunday but for now.......

Take care.