Template letters
Download and make changes to our template letters to fit your situation
Open Society
Accumulating harm and waiting for crisis: Parents perspectives of accessing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services for their autistic child experiencing mental health difficulties
Background Autistic children and young people are at increased risk of mental health difficulties, but often face barriers when seeking help from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). There is limited literature exploring the accessibility of CAMHS for autistic young people, particularly from parents perspectives. The present study aimed to 1) explore the experiences of parents/carers seeking help from CAMHS for their autistic childs mental health difficulties, and 2) gain parents perceptions of the accessibility of CAMHS support for their child and understand what could be improved. Methods A mixed-methods survey design was used to learn from parents/carers. 300 parents/carers took part from across the UK between June and October 2023. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and qualitative data using qualitative content analysis. Results Findings demonstrated the ongoing struggles that parents/carers faced when seeking professional help from CAMHS for their child. Many were not referred to CAMHS or were rejected without an assessment, often due to issues relating to diagnostic overshadowing, a high threshold for assessment, or a lack of professional knowledge about autism and care pathways. Those who were referred reported a lack of reasonable adjustments and offers of ineffective or inappropriate therapies, leaving young people unable to engage, and thus not benefiting. Ultimately, parents felt their childs mental health difficulties either did not improve or declined to the point of crisis. However, there was a recognition that some professionals were kind and compassionate, and provided the validation that parents needed. Conclusions There is a need for a more neuro-inclusive and personalised approach in CAMHS, from the professionals themselves, in the adjustments that are offered, and in the therapies that are provided. Further research, funding, and training are urgently needed to ensure mental health support is accessible, timely, and effective for autistic CYP.
### Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
### Funding Statement
This study did not receive any funding.
### Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
Yes
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
Ethics committee of Liverpool John Moores University gave ethical approval for this work (reference: 23/PSY/046).
I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.
Yes
I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).
Yes
I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.
Yes
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
What’s in the Cass Report? — Assigned
The final report of the Cass Review of gender-affirming care for youth is being taken as vindication from anti-trans activists.
The effectiveness and safety of dialectical behavior therapy for suicidal ideation and behavior in autistic adults: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial | Psychological Medicine | Cambridge Core
The effectiveness and safety of dialectical behavior therapy for suicidal ideation and behavior in autistic adults: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial
The timeless and universal architecture of safety
Picture by Ulku Mazlum It is wise to ignore discipline boundaries when engaging in knowledge archaeology. Many of the observations resulting from a transdisciplinary or anti-disciplinary approach d…
Very Ordinary Men | The Point Magazine
I know that I’m supposed to hate Elon Musk.
Hypersensitive, Hyperfocused and Ready for 'Hijack': An Autistic Experience of Sensory Anxiety - Reframing Autism
Why and how do Autistic individuals experience sensory anxiety? In this guest blog, AuDHD Counsellor and Founder of Finding Autism, Amy Adams, explores the intricate world of Autistic sensory processing differences, and how monotropism shapes these experiences, leading to heightened sensitivities and overwhelming responses to stimuli. She shares her strategies for navigating a world where sensory overload is a constant challenge, emphasizing the importance of environmental accommodations and support.
An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue
We say very clearly that rural America is hurting. But we refuse to justify attitudes that some scholars try to underplay.
Magic and the Weird - Weird Pride Day
On wonder, weirdos and the quest for meaning The weird and the magical have always been deeply tied up. When the term ‘weird’ first entered English, it meant ‘fate’ (or in some accounts, ‘having the power to control fate’). The three Fates from Greek mythology are also the Norns of Norse myth, who are also […]
The weird and the magical have always been deeply tied up. When the term ‘weird’ first entered English, it meant ‘fate’ (or in some accounts, ‘having the power to control fate’). The three Fates from Greek mythology are also the Norns of Norse myth, who are also the Weirds, or Weird Sisters. Eventually, they became the witches in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.
From them, we get the modern sense of ‘weird’ as something or someone out of the ordinary. A bit unsettling, a departure from the mundane. You know: like a witch… or possibly a fairy, as in Shakespeare’s main source text.
The Case Against B.F. Skinner
The Noam Chomsky Website.
Whatever function “behaviorism” may have served in the past, it has become nothing more than a set of arbitrary restrictions on “legitimate” theory construction, and there is no reason why someone who investigates man and society should accept the kind of intellectual shackles that physical scientists would surely not tolerate and that condemn any intellectual pursuit to insignificance.
the claims are becoming more extreme and more strident as the inability to support them and the reasons for this failure become increasingly obvious.
In fact, Skinnerian translation, which is easily employed by anyone, leads to a significant loss of precision, for the simple reason that the full range of terms for the description and evaluation of behavior, attitude, opinion, and so on, must be “translated” into the impoverished system of terminology borrowed from the laboratory (and deprived of its meaning in transition).
In fact, there is nothing in Skinner’s approach that is incompatible with a police state in which rigid laws are enforced by people who are themselves subject to them and the threat of dire punishment hangs over all.
Such a conclusion overlooks a fundamental property of Skinner’s science, namely, its vacuity.
Skinner’s book contains no clearly formulated substantive hypotheses or proposals.
Sanctions backed by force restrict freedom, as does differential reward.
Skinner confuses “science” with terminology.
He appears to be attacking fundamental human values, demanding control in place of the defense of freedom and dignity.
His speculations are devoid of scientific content and do not even hint at general outlines of a possible science of human behavior.
Furthermore, Skinner imposes certain arbitrary limitations on scientific research which virtually guarantee continued failure.
As to its social implications, Skinner’s science of human behavior, being quite vacuous, is as congenial to the libertarian as to the fascist.
There is little doubt that a theory of human malleability might be put to the service of totalitarian doctrine.
In general, Skinner’s conception of science is very odd. Not only do his a priori methodological assumptions rule out all but the most trivial scientific theories; he is, furthermore, given to strange pronouncements such as the assertion that “the laws of science are descriptions of contingencies of reinforcement” (p. 189) — which I happily leave to others to decode.
Worse, we discover that Skinner’s a priori limitations on “scientific” inquiry make it impossible for him even to formulate the relevant concepts, let alone investigate them.
Skinner does not attempt to meet this criticism by presenting some relevant results that are not a monumental triviality. He is unable to perceive that objection to his “scientific picture of man” derives not from “extinction” of certain behavior or opposition to science, but from an ability to distinguish science from triviality and obvious error.
Skinner does not comprehend the basic criticism: when his formulations are interpreted literally, they are clearly false, and when these assertions are interpreted in his characteristic vague and metaphorical way, they are merely a poor substitute for ordinary usage.
At this point an annoying, though obvious, question intrudes. If Skinner’s thesis is false, then there is no point in his having written the book or our reading it. But if his thesis is true, then there is also no point in his having written the book or our reading it. For the only point could be to modify behavior, and behavior, according to the thesis, is entirely controlled by arrangement of reinforcers. Therefore reading the book can modify behavior only if it is a reinforcer, that is, if reading the book will increase the probability of the behavior that led to reading the book (assuming an appropriate state of deprivation). At this point, we seem to be reduced to gibberish.
In every possible respect, then, Skinner’s account is simply incoherent.
Skinner’s “science of behavior” is irrelevant: the thesis of the book is either false (if we use terminology in its technical sense) or empty (if we do not).
But the thesis, in so far as it is at all clear, is without empirical support, and in fact may even be empty, as we have seen in discussing “probability of response” and persuasion. Skinner is left with no coherent criticism of the “literature of freedom and dignity.”
Autistic Doctors International | Linktree
Outputs from our members
2024 CRAE Annual Lecture - Autistic professionals and the triple empathy problem - Mary Doherty
Autistic professionals and the triple empathy problem. Dr Mary Doherty, founder of Autistic Doctors International, on leveraging insider perspective for com...
An open framework for neuroqueer learning spaces
Neuroqueering is open to everyone but requires a lot of unlearning, relearning, creating and recreating. Deep learning is rhizomatic.
Systems: What warms the heart? - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
Jane Costello, Duke University - Sharing the Wealth - The Academic Minute
Does profit sharing improve the community at large? In today’s Academic Minute, Jane Costello, a professor at Duke University’s Insitute for Brain Sciences, profiles an experiment involving just that. In 1994, a tribe of Cherokee Indians opened a casino and shared the profits directly with the community. Jane Costello is professor of medical psychology in […]
Fish in a barrel: Berliner’s case against NPR is based on false and out-of-context facts
Nearly 40 years ago I heard a lawyer tell a jury something in court that has stuck with me: If there’s a rotten fish floating around the top of the barrel, you’re under no obligation to…
Autism, off-label chelation & the antivax movement: The beginning
On a cold and rainy night in January 2020 a group of autistic activists stood together protesting the screening of VAXXED 2, an anti-vaccine film, at the Kingsway Theatre. I was there, holding a sign that read “Memo to Antivaxxers: Pandemics are Real. We Don’t Want Them”.
An Experience Sensitive Approach to Care With and for Autistic Children and Young People in Clinical Services - Elaine McGreevy, Alexis Quinn, Roslyn Law, Monique Botha, Mairi Evans, Kieran Rose, Ruth Moyse, Tiegan Boyens, Maciej Matejko, Georgia Pavlopoulou, 2024
Many support schemes in current autism clinical services for children and young people are based on notions of neuro-normativity with a behavioral emphasis. Suc...
Anarchism and Education: the Rebel City Teaching Project | The Political Studies Association (PSA)
The popular misconception that anarchy means ‘chaos’ not only opens the door to the idea that anarchy is a kind of aggressive anti-politics, but also that it has little to contribute to discussions of social policy.
Eyeglasses for Students Boost Academic Performance, Raise Test Scores
Trust in Human Scale
Autistic ways of being are part of a culture that deserves the same respect as any other culture. Over the course of months and years, de-powered dialogue and omni-directional learning amongst Auti…
The online blog format is a great way for catalysing de-powered dialogue and omni-directional learning, one or two steps away from corporate controlled social media environments.
Over the course of months and years, de-powered dialogue and omni-directional learning amongst Autistic, Artistic and otherwise Neurodivergent people results in trustworthy relationships, and in a diverse network of evolving intersectional ecologies of care.
@snittypolitty • Today in class I decided to change up my normal lecture & instead have a discussion. I asked my s... • Threads
Today in class I decided to change up my normal lecture & instead have a discussion. I asked my students why they think their generation (Gen Z) has suicide as the number 1 cause of death. They...
Facebook
FULL PANEL up on our YouTube channel now!. opensaucelive · Original audio
Mx. D.E. Anderson: "And the thing about how white evangelical Christianity manifests is in the insistence that cruelty is love, that empathy and understanding are dangerous, and that authoritarianism is freedom. And when you're in it, it's so hard to see anything else as good." — Bluesky
#175 Special Education is Under Threat
From huge voucher programs that shift funding to private schools that don’t have to accept kids with disabilities to a backlash against funding, special education and the students who rely on it are n
The Diary of a Superfluous Bugbear
On Losing my Best Gig Ever, and Finding the Strength to Keep Going
Inherently cruel systems have a tendency to make people hate themselves. If the social mechanisms to produce those feelings weren’t in place, after all, how would those systems survive?
That’s sadly the state of more and more careers these days: both that they are becoming even more competitive than they always were, and that they are falling apart.
I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I especially didn’t want to be an entrepreneur in a hyper-competitive area where everything is falling apart, but that’s sadly the state of more and more careers these days: both that they are becoming even more competitive than they always were, and that they are falling apart.
Our society shouldn’t be a quasi-Darwinian fight for a shrinking pool of resources (because they’ve all been scooped up by the rich) or a Hobbesian war of all against all. The limited universal basic income experiments that have already been done show the opposite of the capitalists’ feverish fears to be true: given resources “for free,” humans, by and large, act responsibly with them. Which might mean maaaaaybe, just maaaaaybe, it’s the perverse incentives of capitalism that turn so many of us into heartless ghouls. Maybe.
I wish we lived in a society where we all had the time and the means to realize ourselves. Where our basic needs were met by a functional non-sociopathic government, so that we’re housed and have universal healthcare and affordable higher education.
Human meaning is found in the context of a healthy community, not capitalist competition. I hope we all can find that despite the harsh conditions we live in.
Barriers to healthcare and a ‘triple empathy problem’ may lead to adverse outcomes for autistic adults: A qualitative study
Why "PDA Profile of ASD"/ "Persistent Drive for Autonomy” (PDA) are intrinsically ableist terms?
TRIGGER WARNING.Filicide, suicide, and preventable deaths of autistic persons are discussed in the video on slides: 12,13, 14, 38, & 41.Most of the material ...
Lara Ferguson 🇪🇺🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on X: "Yesterday I had an assessment with a DBT unit called Hope House run by @elysiumcare (Yes I’m naming and shaming them). I’d like to highlight 2 practices they openly brag about within their treatment for women with ‘EUPD’. 1) behavioural incentive pathway 2) blank face 1:1…" / X
Yesterday I had an assessment with a DBT unit called Hope House run by @elysiumcare (Yes I’m naming and shaming them).I’d like to highlight 2 practices they openly brag about within their treatment for women with ‘EUPD’.1) behavioural incentive pathway2) blank face 1:1…— Lara Ferguson 🇪🇺🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@Lara_Fergie99) April 13, 2024
#CAMHSDontCareIfAutisticKidsDie The Reality of CAMHS for Autistic Kids - Emergent Divergence
Please join us and make #CAMHSDontCareIfAutisticKidsDie g9 viral.