And welcome to this much-abridged edition of Autism News. But as they say, "No News is Good News."

First of all I'd like to apologise for the lack of information on the activity front apart, of course, from the NEW Swimming session at Sun Lane Baths.

And lastly to reassure you all that normal service will resume in the next issue.

Hope you all manage to keep your resolutions this year,

5. Time spent relaxing is time well spent.

From Carole

I was lucky enough to attend the above event in Barnsley when Ros Blackburn and Nick Hodge were the Speakers. It was an excellent day, attended by parents, carers and professionals. Both speakers were very good but, for me, Ros Blackburn was the star of the day. Dynamic and eloquent, this young lady ‘held’ the audience for well over an hour as she delivered her own brand of “information and insight into autism”. Ros is 34 years old, has a diagnosis of Severe Autism and possesses oratory skills second to none. Extremely astute and very witty, Ros led us through her amazing world of autism.

Ros started by saying that she never suffers from nerves when speaking to an audience. Why -

because SHE is then in complete control. She only talks TO the audience, there is NO interaction and she can walk away at any time. (She believes this is why people with autism come across as “control freaks”. To her, the really scary bit comes when she has to socialise in some way). Ros actually said “I cut off relations with people to keep myself safe”. She tried to explain how people with autism carry this fear every day of their lives and illustrated her point with various examples. She asked us to imagine going for an important job interview and pointed out how we control our nervousness and put on a front for this short space of time. She then asked us to imagine how tired and anxious we would feel if, like her, we had to keep this up all of the time. (Point taken, Ros.) She described this feeling as being similar to the apprehension we might feel walking past a drunken group of trouble-makers. (Imagine feeling scared like this every day!)

“The majority of autistic people are pretty smart” said Ros. “but what they all lack is the ability to see the full picture”. She said that they do see each

detail as we do, but they cannot do what we do instinctively (and immediately) and come up with the sum total of a situation. Ros asked us to imagine being given a 1,000 piece jigsaw without a picture on the box. Yes, we would have a mass of details but also lots of confusion and no clue as to what the puzzle would become. That is how it is with autism – being aware of every detail in a situation but unable (instinctively) to grasp the plot. She asked us to remember this with our children; explain things slowly and always allow people with autism more time to process information..

She covered many autistic subjects - one being “autie” toys. (Flappers and ‘stimies’ I think she called them). “Why shouldn’t we have these” said Ros, “we all need comforters in life. Think about the ‘must haves’ that normal folk need – you know, like mobile phones, jewellery etc. and don’t forget that piece of hair you like to twiddle”. (Point taken again.) She told us how much she loved her trampoline and that she would much rather be bouncing than talking to us! She referred to self injury in autism and pointed out that under stress even normal people nail bite and pick skin, often drawing blood. (I was actually picking a split nail as she spoke!) She summed everything up by saying that “we all share behaviours because we are all human. The word < B>normal relates to behaviour and behaviour is only a by-product. She asked us to remember that people with autism have different priorities and said that we should allow our youngsters some ‘flapping time’ if this helped them. Ros also pointed out that autistic people ‘don’t do’ premeditated spite. “This is just not possible” she said. “We only are only concerned with our needs. If something (or someone) gets in our way, well.….but it’s not done in spite .”

Whilst Ros frequently acknowledged her intelligence and skill with words, she constantly stressed how much her understanding is impaired. In this respect, she pointed out that she functions less well than the average young child. All non-verbal meaning is lost on her; hints, innuendo, body language etc., all mean nothing. She also stressed her need for a carer, “sometimes only just to be there but take my carer away and …everything collapses”.

Regarding lack of empathy in autism, she told us the tale of her father’s bad bout of flu. When her mother remarked “How sad for Dad to have flu on Christmas Day”, Ros replied “Why? What’s the difference from having it on March 4^th ?” (She has a

point I suppose.) She told quite a few Christmas stories; like the time the phone was ringing as her mother battled with the turkey in the kitchen. “Quickly, get the phone” said Mum to Ros. So she did. She ran to the phone, disconnected it and took it straight back to her mother. Another time, she answered the phone and the Vicar asked “Is your Mother there?” to which she replied “Yes, thank you” and immediately put the phone down. Lots of lovely tales were told; many of which sounded very familiar. I particularly liked the one about the new, festive kitchen tea towel which her mum had blue-tacked to the kitchen wall as a Christmas decoration. Can you imagine the confusion? Her last Christmas story was one about the making of a jam sandwich; a trauma which led to Ros’ doing a runner shortly after (not before) Christmas dinner ! (All of it - sheer magic, Ros.)

Finally, she asked that we all try to understand autism a little bit more. She asked Mums to understand that their children have completely different priorities from the rest of us; that they go down a completely different avenue of reasoning. She recommended using common sense when dealing with autistic youngsters but to remember that they need so much more time with everything, more understanding, more planning. We take so many things for granted - things which our basic instinct picks up immediately. We forget how much is hidden from them. They cannot multi-task and constantly have to refer back. on-verbal information is useless to them. For example, Ros held up a video and asked what her gesture conveyed. She said that a person with learning difficulties would understand this gesture but, intelligent as she is, she could not. To illustrate the point, she said that when she first started public speaking she would often become very animated and throw her right arm out as she spoke. Every time this happened, she was completely bewildered by audience reaction as they all looked in the direction she was pointing. She wondered what they were looking at and had no idea of the signal she was sending out.

As Ros said, one and a half hours is not enough time to cover the subject (and full spectrum) of autism but I learned quite a lot from this amazing lady. Some of you will remember Ros as one of the speakers at our 2001 Conference but for those who didn’t, if you ever get the opportunity to listen to her, I sincerely recommend you do. She is fantastic and an excellent worker for autism.