The Huddersfield Support Group For Autism

HSGA - Huddersfield Support Group For Autism

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Autism is label relating to communication, imagination and social interaction. The Society has produced a leaflet that explains what autism is. This can be viewed by pressing here.

Autism is often the differences that you notice, or perhaps that people like health visitors or staff at a nursery or infant school talk to you about. Autism is possibly, and only possibly, a way of understanding or answering the many questions that you have. No two children, and no two children with autism are exactly alike; all children are different and are special in their own way. What is important is that if there is even the possibility that your child may have autism or aspergers syndrome, that you keep asking the questions, and ask for your child to be assessed. Our experience, and expert opinion is that "early intervention", early help with speech and language, social development and specific teaching and learning methods and classroom organization makes a massive difference to your child's well being and learning.

As your child grows older, if autism or aspergers syndrome is confirmed by the professionals, then autism may become the way you organize your home, your day, your routines, and even your work. You will need to explore how you can support a young person as they grow up, and as importantly, how you will receive the support you need too. Bringing up any child has its moments! Groups like ours, can help by giving you access to other parents who really understand and who can offer you advice and encouragement.

As a parent, Autism or Aspergers Syndrome is perhaps the range of tools you learn, and the choices you make to give your child or young person the best possible start in life. It is the methods you use to include your child or young person in everyday life, while making sure that the challenges they face will be challenges they can with love, care and guidance, meet.

If you think that your child may have autism or aspergers syndrome, it is worth talking to a member of the group, or perhaps coming along to one of our meetings. We cannot answer the question, but can help to put you in touch with the agencies that organize assessments. What we can do is to introduce you to parents and young people who have learned how to successfully make sure that there is more to life than autism, because there is.

What are these words? "Autism", "Aspergers Syndrome". They are words that people like psychologists, teachers and other people who work with young people use to describe how some people think.

When you are learning you think. When you are talking to other people you are thinking. When you are drawing or writing you are thinking. When you are feeling happy, sad, frightened or having fun, you are thinking.

People who have autism or asperger's syndrome learn to think in a different way to most other people. You cannot see this difference as you cannot see what is in people's heads. This is a problem because it is hard to explain what you cannot see.

Meeting other people who have autism or aspergers syndrome is one of the best ways of learning about it. They can often tell you what they find different about other people and how they think and feel about that. They can tell you what they do to find ways to do things that they find difficult, and tell you about the things that they enjoy.

Autism is not about clever or not clever. Autism is not about shy or not shy. Autism is not about happy or sad. People with autism sometimes feel clever, shy, happy and sad. Just like everyone else. For you, autism or aspergers syndrome is about making other people understand what you want them to do. Autism or Aspergers Syndrome is about making other people understand what will help you to learn, play and have fun. Autism is also about asking other people to let you have quiet time, time to think, and asking other people to let you be yourself.

There are some good books that you can either borrow from the group, or that you can buy from our bookshop. These books have been written by other young people with Autism or Aspergers Syndrome. These writers may think like you and you may be able the things that happen in their books to help explain things to people you know.

Autism and Aspergers Syndrome are "medical words". They were invented by doctors. "Colour Blindness" is also a medical word, invented by doctors. The science, or psychology is not important. What is going to help you at school or college or work is important. Having fun with friends is important. You can learn some of that in books, but, talking to other people you know is probably the best because everyone goes to a different school or college.

Our young people like going on the trips, and like talking about what they are doing and what they would like to do. They like the way that we make sure that everything happens when it should and that everyone can join in if they want to.

There are excellent materials on the NAS web site covering different approaches in different settings. On this page I am going to focus more on the role of the professional, than the specific skills and approaches that may be useful. Food for thought, rather than specific methodology.

When I was at college, doing a degree in psychology, and afterwards, I learnt quite a lot about communication, learning, and social interaction and in gained there and afterwards, a limited but reasonable academic understanding of autism and asperger's syndrome. It was quite a long time later that I actually met anyone with autism. I came to that experience with my ideas preformed and framed within the requirements of the work I was doing at the time. My approach was, how do I apply this knowledge to more effectively manage the group of young people that I am working with.

Autism is young science, is still evolving as a definition, and draws on a number of disciplines. Psychology, pediatrics, speech and language therapy, teaching, class room support and behaviour management to name but some. Your approach to autism is likely to be defined by your role. The problem is that it is all to easy for your approach and understanding to be limited by your role!

Autism is also very challenging science. The problem simply put is when studying autism we are trying to understand an area that deals with people who have a "universe of meaning" or lebenswelt that is significantly different to a standard population, or nearly everyone else that we are likely to be working with. The first challenge is to accept that an artists perceptions are as valid as everyone else's, and that it is our understanding that must be broadened, and not the person with autism that must be forced to change.

There are all sorts of academic models of autism, all sorts of explanations of causation, intervention, teaching styles, behaviour management approaches. Too many to cover here. As a group we do not have a policy or view on which is right, which is wrong. We do believe that further study is important and run study days that draw together professionals from all sorts of backgrounds. In fact, this is one of the most valuable aspects of our work.

We do however place great importance on listening to people with autism. Most professionals learn early in their careers a professional persona and even a role specific language that they use to manage work situations. They create roles for their students, pupils, clients, and have expectations that these will be adopted by them. At least part of our mission as a group is to suggest that it is the experience of our young people, and their families, that the best professionals leave their expectations outside the door and allow to a greater degree than usual, the person with autism to help create the professional relationship. There are certainly models of good practice and do's and don'ts that can help you, and excellent materials can be found on the National Autistic Society web site

Our members include professionals working in a number of fields, who may be able to either answer any questions that you have, or direct you to someone in your local area who may be able to help you.

Autism is challenging to work with, because it makes us reappraise the way in which we work. In our local education authority, there are now special courses run on how to skill up and adapt the learning environment. As a group we celebrate this type of practical assistance for professionals because we see through our children and young people the positive results and the satisfaction that professional experience when they feel as though they have moved through and past the veil of ignorance that is often their first fear, and if support is not available, their lasting frustration.

Many families believe that their lives would be significantly improved by "joined up thinking" and "joined up working". Lack of communication between education, social services and health authorities can lead to situations where everyone assumes that everyone else is doing what they should be. As a professional, you may wish to consider how narrowly you have defined your responsibility for ensuring that all the relevant voices are included in the discussions. Autism is not just about children and young people or adults, it is about families: There is no point in creating a solution in school that leads to problems at home, or even putting into place a solution at school that parents and siblings cannot deal with.

To use schools as an example, teachers often talk about extending learning into the home. The reality is that the school is an extension of home, and not the other way around. School happens after the start of the day, between weekends, and in the break between holidays. Term dates are merely the periods of time parents spend relatively off duty for a part of each school day. The models of partnership opperated in autism specific schools exceed those in most other schools in both depth, detail and work required of both parent and teacher. As many children with autism find it hard to communicate what happened at school, or what happened at home, or in fact, find it hard to imagine that you do not know without being told, the need for detailed communication on a daily basis is essential. Such communication or attention to detail is sometimes avoided in mainstream placements because it is seen as hampering the autonomy or independence of the young person, especially as they get older. Such a view is only possible where assumptions are made about perception, imagination and communication skills that are not valid, and where the model of inclusiveness focuses on the child, rather than the family that is gazing into its crystal ball for the reason why the child or young person is upset about what happened at school today.

For me, autism did not become real until I started to raise first one, then two young people with Asperger's Syndrome. I came to realise quite quickly that we succeeded most often where professionals were willing to learn, and to think outside their normal roles and seek new solutions. As a generalist, there are if you are lucky, specialist teams that you can contact for advice, and it is always worth doing so. Parents are specialists about the child in front of you. If helped to communicate what they know, their insight can be profound.

Finally a word about labels. Many professionals still believe that labels should be applied sparingly and that they limit or commit a child to a definition that is not always in their best interest. They may feel that the need for a label is a product of the parents circumstances. Whilst it is vital that labels are not misapplied, the nature the learning styles and social organisation of mainstream schools is such that unless there are exceptional reasons, the label if appropriate should be applied and communicated. Where a label is applicable but withheld others will be used: attention seeking, un-cooperative, in a world of their own, lacks the ability to work with peers... Autism for many professionals in the past has been encountered and labeled in the common vernacular of the school report card. Labels that impart understanding, and suggest a positive intervention are valuable, but where withheld, ignorance and the belief that the child should simply try harder to conform has been historically commonplace and had unfortunate results for all concerned.

Groups like the HSGA can help to provide a forum for learning: All of us still are.

(Page written by Daniel Janes (B.Sc Hons Behavioural Sciences), parent of two young people with Asperger's Syndrome.)

Members of The Support Group (and anyone else who has something helpful that they wish to share) are welcome to submit articles for the web site: Publication does not mean that any views expressed are the views of the Support Group. As in any group, we welcome a range of views on many of the topics we are interested in.