Women and Autism

It's been World Autism Awareness this week and I seem to have been hooked on grabbing more information about the Autism world with regard to Women. It all started with wanting to find a good book to read about Women and Autism so I went for 'Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder' by Sarah Hendrickx. I am still reading this so I will review it properly in a future post but it is brilliant. It is a big eye opener as I don't think we have realised just how differently women present themselves with Autism. This has a massive effect on life, diagnosis and general experiences. I am amazed.

I then watched the Channel 4 Documentary 'Are You Autistic' which mainly featured women and girls but did involve two people, one male, one female who go through the diagnosis process. I loved this programme, I felt quite connected with it. It made me realise how some of the women's behaviour felt quite familiar. Certain situations such as going out to be sociable and not really seeing the point of small talk made me smile and the speed dating scenario was a revelation when it demonstrated how easy women masked their Autistic traits. I don't want to give too much away if you've not seen it so if you want more information about the programme go to the NAS website here at:
www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/media-centre/news/2018-28-03-are-you-autistic.aspx 
You can catch up with the programme if you missed it on All 4.

I felt quite emotional really as someone who has a feeling that something hasn't made sense along the path of life in many ways. So for even more information I decided to sign up to the new training module provided by the National Autistic Society about Women and Girls. 

Wow, I want to stay in this course forever as I feel quite at home with all the information in it and the comments from people such as Dr Judith Gould, Sarah Hendrickx, Lana Grant and Tony Attwood It's as if someone has just written my life story, well a fair bit. It's amazing and I have to thank one of the contributors to this module who is our very own Lorraine MacAlister, she is Trainer and Consultant with the NAS and all round lovely lady. It is fascinating and well worth doing if you have an interest here. It is aimed to support clinicians and professionals initially but it has so much useful information for anyone really. 

I don't absorb information very well most of the time although I do have a go and some studying but this I can really take in. It's probably because I'm really interested. I'm terrible when reading books as I tend to zone out and think about other things, I end up having to back track to contuse with the book. Talk about life getting the way!!

This module is free for a year thanks to the Pears Foundation who have kindly funded this project. So go and take advantage of it. You will need 120 minutes of your time but once you set up an account, you can complete it in stages to make it easier. 

It certainly shakes things up regarding Autism. I didn't realise how much us women can mask or camouflage our behaviour and it's no surprising that women get mis diagnosed or Autism goes unrecognised. It's time for change. 

I feel a massive amount of gratitude to those who have brought this to life and worked on these projects whether it's books, tv and training. It's certainly gave me a lot of food for thought.

So if you would like information on how you can sign up for the Women and Girls Module go to the NAS website here at:
www.autism.org.uk/professionals/training-consultancy/online/women-and-girls.aspx

It has all the information you need such as what is involved and who is also involved, I can really recommend it. 

Thanks for reading today, I hope you've had a great World Autism Awareness Week doing lots of lovely things to raise awareness. I will be back tomorrow for Pass the Remote Sunday so until then take care.