Talking to autistic people: what autistic people want you to know

Much research on social interaction and communication in autism focuses on things that autistic people do ‘wrong’, from a non-autistic perspective. But what about things that non-autistic people do ‘wrong’, from an autistic perspective? In this talk, Holly Sutherland will present findings from her research on autistic people’s perspectives of social communication - what they find important, what they want non-autistic people to know, and what they want non-autistic people to do. Attendees will hear, in autistic people’s own words, about things that can make social interaction and communication challenging for autistic people – some of them innate, some of them due to environment or other people – and will leave the talk with specific pointers on how to make communication easier for the autistic people they work with.