My uni has asked me to give new students a talk on Autism

Post Reply New Topic

Hi,

My uni has asked me to give a talk to a group of new students - who all have autism - about my experiences starting/being at university from an autistic perspective.

I'm worried that I could go all doomsday on them, as some of my experiences with my universities support for autistic students has been terrible - I probably wasn't a good person to ask lol - so I thought I would post here and see if anyone has any gems of advice I could give them, as I don't want to scare them but I do want to help them avoid the problems that I have had.

Thanks,

11:32.

Well, you have been successful, haven't you? Just talk about how you made it through. I your university hasn't done all too well with your autism, then maybe advocate for better disability support.

Awesome! That is so cool.

One tip I follow when speaking publicly and not wanting to get negative is to start out talking about all the good benefits. That way, if I start laundry listing, at least it will be about good things. Then, if there are one or two bad things, I list them on an index card and convince myself to "stick to the script" so I won't get distracted by adding to the list.

Good luck and let us all know how it turns out for you and the new students!

The most useful I think is to go through some situations that might come up as they go through the term, like if they need a eggstension on assignments how and when to ask for it, if they need accommodations for a class how to get it, if they have issues with roommate how to deal with it, etc. One emphasis could be that if they have problems big or small, there is somewhere like the disability office to turn to deal with those problems instead of suffering with them alone.

Maybe you could speak about how you deal with autism, in general, while at uni; not about the university, itself. Also, if you feel you need to mention a negative aspect, add a solution along with it----like, you might say: "'This' isn't very good, but what I always do, is _________" (fill-in the blank).

Have a look at the cartoon thread that started in the past hour on this forum. LupaLuna has posted a short video there. Maybe you could make a small video that depicts a dialogue in graphics, though if you don't know people with these skills, and don't have them yourself, that could be too hard. The one is the thread would be brilliant for a childhood audience. It wouldn't be entirely wasted on an older audience though as an introductory thing. It would be great if someone made an adult version, which could be shown to kickstart a personal presentation like the one that you are going to deliver.