Introduction to SEND: Week 1 - What is Autism?

I am taking a short-course through the WEA, Introduction to SEND.
Here are some active learning notes and thoughts I had about week 1.

What is Autism?
Even though I learnt a lot more about Autism and its technical definitions today, I think my approach to this question has become a little more complex.

The things that stuck in my head pivoted around the words and phrases: 'person-centred approach', 'individual' and 'normal'. 
I was particularly struck with the reframing of autism as 'a different way to perceive reality' and that Wali in the video described 'pretending to be normal'. I remember being blown away by the though experiment about how we can't know if two people perceive the same colour in the same way. Two people might call a ball 'red', and have learnt that is the colour they are seeing is called red, but that doesn't mean that in their own heads and through their own eyes that their brains are perceiving the colour in the same way. If the two people could 'swap eyes' then maybe what looked red to one, might look green to the other, even though they both agreed and understood the colour as 'red'.

Everyone individually perceives reality in a different way, and I believe the centring the individual human experience, in this case with regard to the treatment of autistic people within society, is the way to approach everything. I can't and don't know how differently someone might approach or see the world from how I do without asking and getting to know them, which is why awareness and understanding are key. Again to paraphrase Wali from the video, 'definition by what you are, not by what you're not'.

Quite a few of my take-aways from today's lessons centre around the use of language for this topic. As well as the 'individual' and 'person-centred', other words that stuck out to me were:

In one of the definitions of ‘SEND’ from the SEND Code of Practice, ‘has a disability which prevents or hinders…’ both of these words feel like an obstruction, almost admitting that the approach, solution or ‘way round’ their disabilities is almost too challenging for a solution to be attempted because it is a deviation from the ‘normal’.

Genetic versus environment: it is the classic nature versus nurture consideration, but I found it interesting to think about how these two would interact for someone with autism. How the environmental factors make the genetic predispositions worse: either immediate factors such as sensory stimulus or longer-term environmental factors such as emotional support and routine. Further to this, the idea that I’ve read about in the last few months about how the overstimulation of modern life is perhaps an environmental factor that is exacerbates autistic symptoms for a greater majority of people, and perhaps it is this, alongside increased research, awareness and diagnosis which accounts for the rise in autistic diagnoses across the spectrum. 

The definition of autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder or impairments of the growth and development of the brain was interesting for me to learn from a personal perspective, and I am curious to learn more about the link between the brain’s physical structure and the disorder of brain function. 

I have also been thinking about ‘disorder of brain function, emotion, learning, self control and memory’ and how sometimes those disordered ways of thinking can often be positive in some respects. I have come across a few articles recently exploring the link between autistic thinking and exceptionalism - and there seems to be a few academic studies into this too. 

With regard to seeing the full Autistic spectrum for the first time, I was surprised… (alarmed, maybe) to see coordination as one of the criteria. It had never occurred to me that this would be considered.

“Autism is not a learning disability but around half of autistic people may also have a learning disability.” I have been thinking a lot about this and how perhaps if there were the resources, space and time were directed properly and tailored, that might really make a difference. A small example, but for instance one publisher was telling me about how they were putting a tactile element on their covers to act as a sensory fidget device to help those who need it concentrate to read.