Open Society

Official Post from Pete Wharmby

Seattle’s Tina Bell is forgotten no more

“I went through a lot when I was a boy. They called me sissy, punk, freak…” — Little Richard   The most reductive possible version of the story goes like this: On February 12th, 1976, a quartet of straight white boys called The Sex Pistols took the stage at The Marquee Club in London […]

Autism in Adulthood

“Forced Intimacy” is a term I have been using for years to refer to the common, daily experience of disabled people being expected to share personal parts of ourselves to survive in an ableist worl…

#NEISVoid is the hashtag on twitter for tweets from/about chronic pain or chronic illnesses & disabilities, creating a supportive community.

“Missed” cases with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) within adult psychiatry services have attracted increasing attention in the last decade. Key q…

April 29, 2022 Last Time, the Religious Right Told Us Not Only What We Can Teach but How to Teach It By Alfie Kohn Christian conservatives are banning books and censoring school curricula -- and

Psychological research is clear: when people procrastinate, there's usually a good reason

Tricia Hersey launched a napping ministry to encourage Black women to rest.

I’ve been grappling with an unexpectedly difficult feeling lately. Ever since I started taking in the (still occasionally surprising)…

Effective information transfer requires social communication skills. As autism is clinically defined by social communication deficits, it may be expected that i...

Do you want to know how to recover from Autistic Burnout? Autistic Clinical Psychologist, Dr Alice Nicholls, shares seven steps to recovery.

Despite substantial comorbidity of sensory dysfunction and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there are few evidence-based sensory interventions for educators to i...

This short conference talk sets out different competing outlooks on the proposed Disorder, Demand Avoidance Phenomena (DAP, sometimes called Pathological Dem...

Join the Conference to Restore Humanity! 2022: System Reboot. Together, we will reimagine and recreate systems that support students and teachers toward a greater purpose and motivation.

It's past time to demand a conference model that is accessible, sustainable, and representative of the communities we serve.

Background: Although autistic adults often discuss experiencing “autistic burnout” and attribute serious negative outcomes to it, the concept is almost completely absent from the academic and clinical literature. Methods: We used a community-based participatory research approach to conduct a thematic analysis of 19 interviews and 19 public Internet sources to understand and characterize autistic burnout. Interview participants were autistic adults who identified as having been professionally diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition. We conducted a thematic analysis, using a hybrid inductive–deductive approach, at semantic and latent levels, through a critical paradigm. We addressed trustworthiness through multiple coders, peer debriefing, and examination of contradictions. Results: Autistic adults described the primary characteristics of autistic burnout as chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. They described burnout as happening because of life stressors that added to the cumulative load they experienced, and barriers to support that created an inability to obtain relief from the load. These pressures caused expectations to outweigh abilities resulting in autistic burnout. Autistic adults described negative impacts on their health, capacity for independent living, and quality of life, including suicidal behavior. They also discussed a lack of empathy from neurotypical people and described acceptance and social support, time off/reduced expectations, and doing things in an autistic way/unmasking as associated in their experiences with recovery from autistic burnout. Conclusions: Autistic burnout appears to be a phenomenon distinct from occupational burnout or clinical depression. Better understanding autistic burnout could lead to ways to recognize, relieve, or prevent it, including highlighting the potential dangers of teaching autistic people to mask or camouflage their autistic traits, and including burnout education in suicide prevention programs. These findings highlight the need to reduce discrimination and stigma related to autism and disability. Lay summary Why was this study done? Autistic burnout is talked about a lot by autistic people but has not been formally addressed by researchers. It is an important issue for the autistic community because it is described as leading to distress; loss of work, school, health, and quality of life; and even suicidal behavior. What was the purpose of this study? This study aimed to characterize autistic burnout, understand what it is like, what people think causes it, and what helps people recover from or prevent it. It is a first step in starting to understand autistic burnout well enough to address it. What did the researchers do? Our research group—the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education—used a community-based participatory research approach with the autistic community in all stages of the study. We analyzed 9 interviews from our study on employment, 10 interviews about autistic burnout, and 19 public Internet sources (five in-depth). We recruited in the United States by publicizing on social media, by word of mouth, and through community connections. When analyzing interviews, we took what people said at face value and in deeper social context, and looked for strong themes across data. What were the results of the study? The primary characteristics of autistic burnout were chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. Participants described burnout as happening because of life stressors that added to the cumulative load they experienced, and barriers to support that created an inability to obtain relief from the load. These pressures caused expectations to outweigh abilities resulting in autistic burnout. From this we created a definition: Autistic burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic life stress and a mismatch of expectations and abilities without adequate supports. It is characterized by pervasive, long-term (typically 3+ months) exhaustion, loss of function, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. Participants described negative impacts on their lives, including health, capacity for independent living, and quality of life, including suicidal behavior. They also discussed a lack of empathy from neurotypical people. People had ideas for recovering from autistic burnout including acceptance and social support, time off/reduced expectations, and doing things in an autistic way/unmasking. How do these findings add to what was already known? We now have data that autistic burnout refers to a clear set of characteristics, and is different from workplace burnout and clinical depression. We have the start of a model for why autistic burnout might happen. We know that people have been able to recover from autistic burnout and have some insights into how. What are the potential weaknesses in the study? This was a small exploratory study with a convenience sample. Although we were able to bring in some diversity by using three data sources, future work would benefit from interviewing a wider range of participants, especially those who are not white, have higher support needs, and have either very high or very low educational attainment. More research is needed to understand how to measure, prevent, and treat autistic burnout. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future? These findings validate the experience of autistic adults. Understanding autistic burnout could lead to ways to help relieve it or prevent it. The findings may help therapists and other practitioners recognize autistic burnout, and the potential dangers of teaching autistic people to mask autistic traits. Suicide prevention programs should consider the potential role of burnout. These findings highlight the need to reduce discrimination and stigma around autism and disability.

Better lessons would help everyone learn sexuality.

Parent and autistic childrens experiences of lockdown

BackgroundResearch indicates that sexual violence affects about 30% of women in the general population and between two to three times as much for autistic women.Materials and MethodsWe investigated prevalence of sexual abuse, autistic traits and a range of symptoms, using an online survey addressed to the women of the French autistic community (n = 225). We assessed victimization through an open question and through a specific questionnaire, derived from the Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Victimization.ResultsBoth case identification methods yielded high figures: 68.9% victimization (open question) compared to 88.4% (standardized questionnaire). Two thirds of the victims were very young when they were first assaulted: among 199 victims, 135 were aged 18 or below and 112 participants were aged 15 or below. 75% of participants included in our study reported several aggressions. Analyses indicate that primo-victimization was highly correlated to revictimization and that being young increased that risk. Young victims were also at higher risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. A third of the victims reported the assault. 25% of those were able to file a complaint (n = 12) and/or receive care (n = 13). For the remainder 75%, reporting did not lead to action.DiscussionThose findings indicate a very large proportion of victims of sexual assault among autistic women, consistently with previous research. The World Health Organization states unambiguously that sexual...

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To access this transformed world, we need to begin transforming ourselves.

The (white) ears of Ofsted: A raciolinguistic perspective on the listening practices of the schools inspectorate

A new movement wants to shift mainstream thinking away from medication and toward greater acceptance.

The use of techniques based on the achievements of behaviorism stirs rampant emotions among education specialists. It is worth remembering, that behaviorism had its origins in experimental research involving animals. Conducting research on the impact of stimuli, and human reactions to them, took place at a later date. Therefore, the use of the most rudimentary mechanisms of this kind of science in the teaching of the younger generations may generate doubts, either of a moral or methodological nature.