World Autism Acceptance Day 2016

World Autism Acceptance Day (WAAD), also known as World Autism Awareness Day, can provide not only a useful mechanism through which to reconsider our priorities in the field of autism education, but motivate us to highlight aspects of our work which we hope are helping to improve the educational opportunities and longer term outcomes for autistic children.

A primary school classroom in Greece

 

In Italy, members of the TAE team are participating in a two-day event on the 2nd and 3rd of April entitled ‘Autism: Strategies for Well-Being’. Consisting of talks, workshops and culminating in an autism-friendly film-screening, team members will also emphasise the ways in which the TAE project has sharpened the understanding and skills of different practitioners. One of the speakers at the event is ‘Simone Knowing Simon S.’, a well-known autistic advocate, trainer and consultant who is also a specialist advisor to the Italian TAE team. He will talk about how teachers can facilitate the inclusion of autistic children in the classroom.

Participants at the Italian piloting sessions of the TAE training materials

 

In Greece, some of the TAE team are marking WAAD a little later in the month on 10th April at the Café Myrtillo, the first café in Greece to employ only autistic adults and those with other special educational needs and disabilities. The main speaker at this event will be Dr Damian Milton, who plays an important advisory role on the TAE project. His talk is entitled: ‘Creating autism-friendly societies’ and will be followed by a presentation on the TAE project itself by the Greek team lead, Katerina Laskaridou, leading to an open discussion. The event organisers have made this event open to the public, but have purposefully invited autistic adults and teenagers in order to emphasise the vital nature of their participation and input.

Poster advertising the event at the café Myrtillo