Category: Announcements
An Update since Autistic Pride 2021
In 2021, Autistic Empire founder Sarah McCulloch spoke at Autistic Pride Online on the journey of developing autistic identity.
In that talk, she analysed the unfolding controversy about the film Music, released by Sia that year. A short extract:
“[w]e have substantial numbers of autistic people who deny that they are autistic but have an affinity for autistic people, so they get involved in the autistic community and autistic advocacy from the perspective of supporting autistic people, when really, they’re just promoting internalised neurotypical ideas about who we are and what we do, which is damaging to them as well as us.
…
So that was the majority narrative of the film. But what I would like to suggest is what if we shifted our perspective and saw Sia as an autistic person who felt some kind of kinship with the identified autistic people in her life, and made a film about being autistic, that reflected all of the contradictory, medicalised, and pathological framing and language that professionals use about us and *autistic people often use about themselves*, and then had a meltdown when publicly criticised for it? How would we have treated her differently then?”
Sia recently went on a podcast to says she has known she was autistic since 2021, so good to know that Sarah wasn’t the only autistic person to have noticed.
Welcome to your tribe, Sia.
You can watch the full 23 minute talk on the Autistic Empire YouTube Channel here:
Speaking at Kings College London
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!
Невроразнообразие (Neurodiversity) (Bulgarian and English)
One of our Bulgarian citizens would like to draw your attention to their new Neurodiversity Forum, Невроразнообразие (Neurodiversity)!
Neurodiversity is an informational media channel on neurodiversity, facilitated by neurodiverse people. It is based in trauma-informed practice and positive models of empowerment. The channel has organized workshops, meet-ups, and an online mutual-aid channel, which aim to spread awareness about the neurodiverse community in Bulgaria and to lessen stigma against the community.
Please note the Page posts in Bulgarian and the Group posts in Bulgarian and English. Event talks are translated into both Bulgarian and English on request.
Give them a like!
Grand Sensory Survey Article Published in American Journal of Occupational Therapy
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.
Sensory Health and Autism Summit, 14th June 2023
Founder Sarah McCulloch will be speaking at the Sensory Health and Autism Summit on the 14th June, organised by StarSPD.
Tickets are now $159 through to June 16th and recordings will continue to be available as Continuing Professional Development packages on the StarSPD website.
Our talk will be building on our Grand Sensory Survey research (published in 2019 on AutisticEmpire.com, written up and published in April 2023 in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy) and will raise new areas of sensory differences of autistic people that are underresearched and rarely considered in clinical practice.
Grand Sensory Survey 2.0 is in its final design and will be out soon!
Peer Clinic – Opening 2022
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.
Ted Rogers at Autistic Pride 2021
At Autistic Pride 2021, AE Citizen Ted Rogers showcased an experimental, and experiential, film he has produced exploring the sensory aspects of autism, and spoke about his autistic journey. We have finally cut and uploaded this, so you can check it out!
Ted runs a monthly radio show for autistic people called Autismik, which you can listen to past episodes of on Margate Radio here: https://margateradio.co.uk/ted-rogers
Discord Public Link
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
Annual Report 2020
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).