Many thanks to Kings College London for the invitation to speak at the recent Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures Teaching Day on supporting autistic students.
Our director Sarah McCulloch shared a panel with Senior Lecturer Catherine Smale and autistic writer and academic Jodie Hare.
Good to see autistics talking about autism as always!
For the last three years, we have been working with the University of Colorado and the STAR SPD Institute to build on the findings of our Grand Sensory Survey. We are very pleased to announce that the first (we hope!) journal article on this topic, summarising our findings, has been published by the American Journal of Occupational Therapy in their Autism Acceptance month special issue.
We would like to express our deepest thanks to the academics and researchers who contributed (and wrote most of it).
To see the AJOT issue table of contents in full (paid subscription to actually read it) here.
Citizens can access the article in full on the Citizens’ Dashboard.
If you would like to cite the article, please use:
Spielmann, V., Burke, H. K., McCulloch, S., Mason, A., & Lane, S. J. (2023). Linking sensory integration and processing with mental health in autism: A retrospective review of survey data. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 77, 7702185080. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2023.050127
We are still working on the follow-up survey (GSS 2.0) but are nearly finished and will hopefully announce something this year.
Many of the citizens of the Autistic Empire receive requests for their time with people who want to speak to an autistic adult. They may be a parent, professional, or newly identified autistic person who just want to consult an autistic person to gain their perspective.
In recent years, these requests have increased significantly in number. While this is a very positive thing as awareness of autistic lives and advocacy increases, this is putting a heavy demand on our citizens to give their time and labour for free.
We are therefore offering a paid peer clinic for anyone who would like to speak to an autistic adult on any topic. You can read the biographies, availability and fees of our current peers below. We come from a range of backgrounds, experiences and professions. You may request a specific peer you would like to speak to, or email us with what you want to talk about and we will match you with someone appropriate.
Learn more about our clinic and our peers here.
After several months of testing, we have now moved all of our online platforms to our Discord server.
Discord is a VoIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform (basically every chatroom you’ve ever used but better). You can download it as an app on your phone or software for your computer. This is where we will be hosting our online community for the foreseeable future.
You can join the public channels without needing to be a Citizen of the Autistic Empire, but there are channels which are Citizen-only.
Public link: https://discord.gg/QtzKGbd
The Autistic Empire Annual Report is now available for 2020.
Please note the report generally covers the calendar year of 2020 but the financial accounts run from July 2019 to July 2020 (this is when Companies House requires our accounts).
Autistic Pride Day is a global event celebrated widely online and offline on or around June 18th every year. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, nearly all offline Autistic Pride events have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
To look forward to the day we will be able to freely celebrate Autistic Pride without restrictions once more, the Autistic Empire has released a high-resolution, professionally designed, autistic pride flag under the Creative Commons licence permitting any use of this flag, including commercial use, as long as attribution is made to the Autistic Empire.
The infinity symbol represents neurodiversity, the rainbow represents the pride movement. Gold is used by autistic advocates as the chemical symbol for gold is Au (from the Latin aurum). Gold is promoted as an alternative to non-autistic-led groups designating colours such as blue as a symbol for autism.
Feel free to use the autistic pride flag to make flags, banners, badges, print it, redesign it, sell it – it’s yours, forever.
For more information about licencing and the history of autistic pride, please see our Autistic Pride page.
The Autistic Empire will be speaking during the London Autistic Pride slot at Autistic Pride 2020. Please see our page for Autistic Pride for further information on the concept of Autistic Pride and for details of this year’s events.