#NEScymru in the morning! @nationaledshow.bsky.social I will be talking about whether people are being mis-sold sensory supports, and whether diagnosis are needed.

Off to look for my sweets, looking forward to talking to a team of teachers later, remembering Flo with them and thinking about sensory supports! @gwr.com

My cat is out of the bag! Connectiverse tell me they've already had feedback on this article from an LA Education Partnership Officer saying "YES, all educators should think about the cat!" The article is about online.fliphtml5.com/fodzc/oxcy/

The focus was why eating can be difficult for people who struggle with the sensory world. There is lots in the answering of that why, not least: the reality of different sensory processing, how multi sensory and invasive eating is, that eating often happens in

Not quite as seemless as the reel implies, tubes so crowded they were preventing us boarding, tube doors opened as main train was due to depart (merciful 3min delay there)

Recently I was sent a book. It is the first book I've read in my free time since doing the PhD, its author Samantha Bowen is just about to start a PhD herself. I'm grateful she wrote the book before doing it, making it www.amazon.co.uk/Phoenix-Unic...?

I began my school pick up run at 6.30am, will I make it on time?

12 hours bed to bed. Such a lovely feeling being back on the rails again. Tomorrow...! Watch this space :-)

The most beautiful part of the @gwr.com line from Penzance to Paddington. Now in the good company of @PMLDlink a longtime travel companion of mine. www.PMLDlink.org.uk

The @gwr.com line for Penzance to Paddington is utterly sublime. Such a gentle way to wake up. I'm travelling without the boxes today, but I have bags full of stories. @lorileska.bsky.social

Great to be back on the rails again after the summer. @GingersDiner @gwr.com @SamBowen

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Neurodivergent and Not Attending

www.teesvalleyeducation.co.uk/sensory-stor... FREE sensory stories from David, an alumni of the Super Sensory Lexiconary, what a fabulous gift for a Saturday.

www.teesvalleyeducation.co.uk/sensory-stor... FREE sensory stories from David, an alumni of the Super Sensory Lexiconary, what a fabulous gift for a Saturday.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/the-sensor... I have had a few bookings this week for next year's events: The Double Figured Double Super Sensory Lexiconary happening in Leeds and Bristol, and the inaugural The Bridge happening in

This is a little film to think about the diagnosis of autistic people. Do you believe in red fish? Who do you listen to? The fish, the scientist? If other nets catch the fish do we need one for the red fish specifically? What use to the fish are the nets? youtu.be/RMbyABOR0BE

Penguin prep is escalating!

This is a reference post for an article I am writing (there's not word count to give full references within the article so I'm leaving them here to refer across to). There are three things here: 1) The slide is from a presentation I did recently: Neurodivergent and Not Attending.

The shear gaslighting of the autistic experience, especially within education, is staggering @drmbothapsych.bsky.social Many autistic children struggle to go to school because it is not accessible. But columnists write that this isn't happening, that people are making it up.

The dehumanisation of autistic people in research plays out in the media as a dehumanisation of autistic children and their parents in narratives that relate autistic children to cost to society @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

The idea that autistic people are the scientists and mathematicians feeds into the idea of autistic people as machines, and only of value if they have 'use' to society @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

A questioner in the room at @drmbothapsych.bsky.social lecture speaks of how arts spaces discriminate against autistic creatives

The community of care makes this work possible. @drmbothapsych.bsky.social Without it I would have burnt out long ago. Don't try to do this alone.

You can access @drmbothapsych.bsky.social work here: www.durham.ac.uk/staff/moniqu...

As an autistic researcher, who was about to study for a post doc on the accessibility of research for autistic people, but who got removed from academia for being autistic, hearing @drmbothapsych.bsky.social speak is particularly personal. In the back of my head I know I should still do the work.

We have to aim to have impact, research should positively impact autistic people's lives @drmbothapsych.bsky.social if you are not breaking the system that dehumanises autistic people you are reinforcing it.

Researchers need to take responsibility for the media misrepresenting their work, and they need to be responsible for harm they may cause to colleagues @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

When there is only one seat at the table it leads to people fighting between themselves for that seat. Autistic people end up fighting other autistic people and looking to tear them down. @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

Talking to an autistic person once in a 6 month period to credit your research as 'participatory' is not being a part of the solution @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

Minoritarian concepts get picked up by majoritarian populations and gobbled up, digested and made palatable. @drmbothapsych.bsky.social i.e. you get neurodiversity lite

There is a lack of concern about whether autistic people will be harmed by research @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

The dehumanisation of autistic people in research, feeds into the media and does harm to autistic lives, that harm is then used to justify the next round of dehumanising research @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

"I believe in science. But I do not believe in this science" @drmbothapsych.bsky.social - said with deep sorry by Prof Botha in relation to autistic research

Prof Botha analysised over 70k abstracts from autism research @drmbothapsych.bsky.social and reports it as a shit show and a shame! And has the evidence to back this up. The consequences of the dehumanising of autistic people in research shows up in the lives of autistic people in awful ways

The use of the term 'disordered' in relation to autism has sky rocketed since the 1980s @drmbothapsych.bsky.social

Looking at what research is done about autistic people @drmbothapsych.bsky.social points out that the vast majority of it is stuff that does harm to autistic people, very little of use to autistic lives

The consequences of media representing dehumanisation research @drmbothapsych.bsky.social are huge.

It is hard to continue to listen to @drmbothapsych.bsky.social because the findings are so brutal. How they managed to push through four years of looking at this topic is beyond me. But I am so grateful and glad that they did and that they now speak so clearly on the topic.

It was monstrously hard to find examples within the media of humanising autism research @drmbothapsych.bsky.social even though universities are running humanising research it is not picked up by the media (who do publish widely dehumanising autism research)

Watch out for references to autism separate to people @drmbothapsych.bsky.social Autism does not exist outside of people. Separating it from the people is the ultimate dehumanisation move.

Scary to hear from @drmbothapsych.bsky.social that broadsheet newspapers dehumanise autistic people as much as tabloid papers (when ordinarily with other populations that experience prejudice the broadsheets tend not to dehumanise as much)

When you dehumanise you are more likely to believe that ANY treatment outweighs ANY risk of harm @drmbothapsych.bsky.social - reporting the dehumanisation of autistic people in research

The message is very clear, from @drmbothapsych.bsky.social when you dehumanise people in research people disengage morally from the outcomes. E.g. you can do research that harms, but you don't care, because you've morally disconnected from those in your research. This is happening in autism research

I'm listening to @drmbothapsych.bsky.social describe the denial of complex secondary emotions in autistic people.... we are considered capable of basic emotions, but nothing more. This is dehumanising.

Terrifying to currently be witnessing how relevant a diagram from a research presentation is today. @drmbothapsych.bsky.social Often times research is considered irrelevant or obscure in relation to daily life. But we are globally witnessing the results of this one in the news media this week.

Here is one of the shocking findings of @drmbothapsych.bsky.social www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... familial relationships with autistic people did NOT reduce risk of dehumaisation, where as non-familial relationships did reduce the risk of dehumanisation

Listening to @drmbothapsych.bsky.social review what was published in www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... and although I've read the paper many times before it is still shocking.