Here is the list of presentations given at Autscape 2005. Only presenters who have explicitly agreed to be listed here are shown. If you presented at Autscape 2005 and would like your details shown or would like to check what bio details we hold about you please contact Autscape via our general enquiry address.
Presenters' Biographies
Martijn Dekker
Martijn has a diagnosis of high functioning autism and has been active in the autistic community since 1996. His main activities are his e-mail based support group Independent Living on the Autistic Spectrum, the associated chat channel #asperger, and speaking at conferences. In 2001 and 2005, Martijn was a keynote speaker at the National Autism Symposium in Missouri, USA.
Kalen Molton
Kalen Molton is autistic, married to an autistic partner, and has three children, one of whom is suspected AS. She has given presentations about living as an adult on the autistic spectrum to audiences across the UK and is the driving force behind Autscape 2005. She is also a long time prominent presence within the online autistic community who runs and participates in a number of support lists / groups.
Dinah Murray
Dinah's updated 2008 biography can be viewed in the 2008 archive section.
Heta Pukki
Heta is a woman with AS from Finland and the mother of one daughter. She has studied autistic-run organisations and written course material on them for the University of Birmingham. Heta was central in starting annual AS seminars in Finland in the late 90's, and is now involved in organising autism conferences. She has given presentations at mainstream and autistic-centred conferences, and she has also had a paper on autistic sexuality published in a peer-reviewed autism journal. She has recently become a board member at Finland's national autism society.
Jim Sinclair
Jim Sinclair is a founder of Autism Network International, and coordinator of Autreat. Jim has been involved in autistic community since 1992, and has extensive experience and observation of autistic culture. Jim also works professionally with autistic people as a rehabilitation counselor.
Jim's personal webpage is at www.jimsinclair.org.
Presentations
Being Autistic Together
Jim Sinclair
Being in shared autistic space, and creating an autistic community, is different from being in neurotypical space. It's also different from being in your own personal autistic space. This session will discuss some characteristics of autistic space and autistic community, and how Autscape is likely to be different from other kinds of shared space you've experienced in NT communities.
Making Social Space for Autism
Dinah Murray
A non pejorative account of autism is proposed based on the idea that autistic differences arise from different attention strategies. This view of autism rejects the medical dysfunction model and thus promotes the possibility of social acceptance and social space for autistic people.
Workshops
Autism — Who Owns the Terminology?
An examination of the way in which terminology has assumed a role in the balkanisation of autism into tightly defended partisan viewpoints that is hampering greater co-operation and recognition of autistic culture.
Autistic Parenting
Kalen Molton
This is an exploration of parenting autistically - both NT and autistic children - a subject which is seldom discussed and never researched. The assumption seems to be that autistic people can't find partners, let alone parent effectively. There is no literature, no research, almost nothing at all out there about autistic parents except some websites by adult children of autistics. The only people we can turn to for learning and support is each other. This workshop is mainly for those who are already autistic parents, but may also be relevant to autistic people who care for children on a temporary basis or are considering having children, and for NT partners of autistic people.
Online Support Options for ACs
Martijn Dekker
This will be a unique session. Initially Martijn will do a short speech on the available online support options for people on the autistic spectrum. Meanwhile, people on the autistic spectrum from various parts of the world will participate in a chat session to be displayed on a big screen for everyone to read. Martijn's speech and questions from conference participants will be relayed to the chat channel so that conference participants can interact with the online participants in real time.
The interaction between conference and chat channel participants turns this session into an open discussion platform. In Martijn's experience, the spontaneity of these interactions can get very interesting and provoke valuable insights.
Self-employment
Self-employment does not suit everybody, but for those that it does it provides a means to create autistic space within their own lives, to use the best within themselves to their own ends, and to create their own employment conditions to meet their own needs.
Autistic Identity
Jim Sinclair
Exploration of development of identity in autistic people by comparison with identity development in other minority groups. This workshop is particularly suitable for teenagers, those who are newly diagnosed, and others who may be just beginning to understand themselves as autistic people and all that means.
Models for Autistic People's Self-Directed Organised Activity
Heta Pukki
During the past ten years, there has been a tremendous increase in the organised activity of autistic people in various types of associations. Local cultures and values are reflected in the way the routes and rules that guide participation are set up. Key aspects of several organisations, both autistic and mainstream autism associations, are compared to highlight the choices that are made when creating space for autistic people. Seeing the full range of options would help autistic people to make their choices more consciously, when developing new activities and when participating in existing ones.
Participating in Organisations
- How an organisation functions, the roles of the officers such as the chairperson and treasurer
- What needs to be done for an organisation to register as a charity
- Some guidelines on how an organisation should organise and conduct its meetings in order that people with an ASD can participate effectively
- Some tips for people with an ASD who may want to be trustees or to be a member of a committee .
- Opportunities for questions and discussion
An introduction to success in the workplace for people with Asperger's Syndrome and HF ASD. Tips and tricks on how to manage the relative dangers of the job market and workplace and an insight into the presenter's 11 years in the job market. Covering general strengths and weaknesses of the Autistic condition and how that affects our position when looking for a job/maintaining a job. Explaining the new Danish company Specialisterne and how they employ people with autism in the field of software testing and IT-tasks to great success.
Empowerment Project, Sweden
The Empowerment project started to increase the influence and participation of people with high functioning autism in The National Society of Autism in Sweden. Within the project a lot of different forums started. Now, when the project has ended, some of those forums have been integrated within the National Society of Autism in Sweden. One of the project leaders and the coordinator for the empowerment council will tell you about their experiences from the Empowerment project.