#L2YP News - Autism Awareness Week!

Written by - Sadie & Poppy (Year 13)

This week (20-24th October), we are holding Autism Awareness Week, where we will be celebrating charities that do incredible work for neurodivergent individuals and educating ourselves about autism and other neurodivergent conditions. At the end of the week, we will be fundraising for Sparkle, to thank them for the amazing work they do for neurodivergent individuals in our community. We would really appreciate any donations, and for you to come dressed with a splash of sparkle alongside your uniform!

Who are Sparkle? Sparkle has been around since 2001, and their aim is to fully support as many children as possible so they are able to “participate in the same valuable childhood experiences, activities, and leisure services as any other child and their family.” The closest Sparkle centre to us is Serennu Children’s Centre, which opened in 2011. They provide support for both children who have disability or developmental difficulties and their families. The facilities at the centre are fantastic - they have an outdoor play area, a sensory room, a trampoline and bouldering wall, an art room, a MediCinema and a swimming pool too! 

Besides Sparkle, there are many different autism charities to support; the key is finding the right ones. Charities that are genuine, will use their donations to assist autistic people and their families, providing guidance and support groups, as well as advocating for the rights of a marginalised group. Other charities, however, will frame autism as a disease that needs to be cured. They will promote the puzzle piece symbol to suggest that autistic individuals have a missing piece they need to fill, when I can assure you they don’t! Autism is a natural biological variation and it's not until we accept this that we can move past the discrimination and hate towards a future of equality and respect.

By supporting a charity that offers support to individuals with neurodivergent conditions, it is important you learn more about it too. Here are some terms relating to autism, that you might not have heard before:

Stimming: repetitive movements and behaviours used for sensory stimulation. These can range from person to person and, amongst others, may present as hand-flapping, hard blinking, repeating sounds or flicking fingers.

Masking: a strategy used, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic. Despite perhaps helping people to feel more comfortable in social situations, it is exhausting and can lead to awful mental health impacts. Its prevalence in girls is a main reason that autism is often not identified until high school, much less diagnosed.

In school, the ALN department provides extensive support for pupils with neurodivergent conditions, and it’s important that all pupils and staff contribute to this inclusive approach. The ALN department, for example, takes care to understand the reasons behind different behaviours, recognising that sometimes a pupil’s actions are a form of communication and could be a response to sensory overload or other aspects of their neurodivergence. By understanding these differences, we can put the right strategies in place to provide effective support. This could include a pupil being provided with a One-Page Profile (OPP) or an Individual Development Plan (IDP) to outline the approaches that best meet their needs. In the past, all pupils and staff have also taken part in whole-school training with ASD Info Wales (now Neurodivergence Wales), which helped deepen our understanding of how to support neurodivergent individuals.

We hope you have a really insightful week, and an enjoyable Health and Happiness day!