1. Living with Asperger's and student life
By Olivia Sismey

2. Triad of Impairments

3. Autism Is… Be Normal Okay!!! A broken routine is fine
That’s what I’ve been taught,
Have to be social
And change my way of thought.
Have to get the joke,
Cope with the noise,
Know what people think,
And chat about boys;
So I won’t be me
Cut me in half with a knife
I need to fit in
So this is my life…
Not knowing what to do,
What to say,
How to think,
How to be,
Why can’t I not just be me?
Why can’t I dream the day away?
NO.
Must seem normal
And live their way.
Have to sit,
And think,
And learn,
And behave.

4. General difficulties Looking people in the eye
Understanding facial expressions
Using facial expressions
Having inflection in their voice
Getting jokes idioms and sarcasm
Taking most things literally
Stress and difficulty coping
New things or people or places
Lack or understanding the unwritten social rules
Only talk about their “special subject”
Poor or lack of communication
Change !

5. Quick Video

6. Primary School Liked my year three teacher a lot
Was OK
Not that many friends in primary
Was difficult to change from primary to secondary
Last year was the worst
Liked my year three teacher a lot

7. Secondary School Overall I liked high school
Bit of Both
Overall I liked high school
Did have depression during beginning
Not bullied all that much
Made lots of friends and loved it in the end.
Got better in later years especially classes
Was good that it was so relaxed and friendly

8. University
Living away
Social Life
Lecturers
Stress
Help!!

9. Social Life - Difficult to create and hard to maintain…
Not many friends in primary
Not many more in secondary
Gets better in sixth form
Life completely dashed, and starting all over again when coming to University.
Not understanding the social rules and what I’m meant to do.
Societies

10. Quick Video

11. Boyfriend or Girlfriend
Relationships
Creating and keeping
Friends
Family
Meeting new People
Boyfriend or Girlfriend

12. Emotions and Empathy Find emotions of others difficult to understand.
Harder to express own emotion.
There are unwritten social rules that determine what a person does when reacting to others emotions
Find it difficult to put yourself in another's shoes and so find it harder to empathise.

13. Isolation
The problems understanding emotions and social difficulties can make life quite isolating.
Keep to yourself as don’t know how to act and new people and places make you anxious.
Very hard to change but being alone is bad for your health.
For me, it’s the worst and hardest part.

14. Everyone is different Starting an maintaining a conversation
Talking on the phone
Broken routine
Difficulty in understating when other people speak
Scraping paper and pencils
Breaking rules
Noticing the small details
Light sensitive
Nosie

15. What its like
Don’t have poor imagination just find it difficult to visualise my imagination
Poor concentration from so much overbearing sensory input
Completely lost socially and worried your going to do something wrong
Get stressed very easily and don’t really have many ways to get over it.
Can often be very immature.
Love certain things

16. What you can do Brain in hand – app Get to know what affects them.
Try looking at things from new angles.
What are they good at and how can this be used.
Be patient.

17. Brain In Hand

18. Thank you
Any Question?