For many Autistic people or people living with an autistic person, the key to good support and wellbeing is to understand what it means to be autistic. Regardless of whether someone self identifies as autistic or has been diagnosed, these resources might be helpful:
For young people:
For parent carers:
Understanding Autism
NAS Understanding Autism seminars:
GMAC run courses for parents of 5–16-year-olds. These courses are run by parents of autistic children and adults, for parents.
GMAC Grow Confidence group:
The Grow Confidence group is an online support group run by and for autistic adults. The group meet monthly on Zoom on the 3rd Thursday of each month.
Link to GMAC Events Page and Eventbrite link:
Events
Eventbrite
Demand Avoidance
Everyone experiences ‘demand avoidance’ (resistance to doing something that is requested or expected of you) sometimes. However, here we use demand avoidance to mean the characteristic of a persistent and marked resistance to 'the demands of everyday life’, which may include essential demands such as eating and sleeping as well as expected demands such as going to school or work.
Although demand avoidance is widely acknowledged as a characteristic experienced by and observed in some autistic people (and potentially other Neurodivergent, but not autistic, people), there is very little research into it and the research that does exist is generally of a low quality.
NAS
