Around a year ago I was made aware of a research paper and the work of a fantastic Autistic advocate, author and researcher by the name of Kieran Rose. Some of the connections his paper helped me make around the Autistic experience of masking where truly game changing for me. It helped me understand how stigma and prejudice around what is 'normal' and 'acceptable' in our culture plays a huge part in why Autistic people mask. It also made me question how I have approach teaching things like 'social skills' and giving support and advice to Autistic children and young people in the past, as well as some of the early approaches I used that could well have been feeding into that need to mask for fear of being 'different.'

In this episode we chat about this, the paper and some of the problematic ideas that have been part of this issue. As well as trying to get our heads around ways of moving forward. I really enjoyed talking to Kieran and hope you do to.

Please like, share and subscribe. Plus positive reviews on itunes and other podcast providers really really help so are hugely appreciated. I want this one to get lots of listens so I can persuade Kieran to talk to me again and work with me in the future but shhhhhhhh, don't tell him! [That's a joke. I realise he may see this and that also my tone doesn't come across in this text.....should probably take all that out....must remember to do that.....]