Autism Awareness week Assembly

What do the following people all have in common?

1 minute in the life of a person with autism… https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ycCN3qTYVyo

What do JPC students say about living with autism? Lets find out…

How would you describe living with autism? What is it like? “It makes taking jokes hard sometimes.” – “It is more difficult to do everyday things that other people find easy, such as socialising.” – “Scary, depressing, horrible and unfair.” – “It makes even simple things like eating in front of people hard, it causes me lots of anxiety.” – “It feels like you are on your own.” -

Are there any positive aspects to autism that you can think of? “I find subjects that involve patterns easier than most people.” - “You never know how to talk to someone so you’re always uptight and you can’t be yourself. Writing to communicate is easier for me than most people.” -

Are there any negative aspects that you can think of? “I can get offended and upset easily by people, I hang on to things.” - “Clubs – anything that involves socialising.” - “I find meeting new people hard.” - “It is hard to use social skills to make friends and communicate with them.” - “Making friends is hard. I can get obsessions about things which makes me mad!” -

A quick overview of Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC): Autism (sometimes also called Aspergers ) is a condition that can affect the way people communicate and understand the world around them. This can cause issues with socialising, changes in routine and taking things literally “For people with autistic spectrum disorders, 'body language' can appear just as foreign as if people were speaking ancient Greek.” (www.autism.org)

How common is autism? estimated one in 68 children is on the autism spectrum. http://www.mcie.org/ Some modern people believe that Autism is a spectrum which means that we all have some autistic traits.

So what did we learn? How can you help students with Autism? "Be patient with me if I'm obsessing about something." "Be forgiving if I bite your head off every now and again.“ "Be tolerant with me if I try to be your friend but do things that upset you." Lets be ‘autism aware’ and try to understand each other better!