Autism Friendly Cultural Venues : GEM NW and Curious Minds - 18th March 2016

This training event promised:

Steps to developing autism friendly cultural venues

Find out more about autism and how different cultural venues have developed programmes and projects to encourage and support visitors with autism to their venues.

The day will include an introduction to the work of the National Autistic Society, and case studies from venues such as Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery, the Royal Air Force Museum, 42nd Street and an opportunity for networking and sharing best practice.

I have read a lot about ASD lately, as well as organising some in house training, so I wasn't sure whether this would offer anything new, but oh-my-god it was brilliant!

First was an introduction from a representative from NAS (National Autistic Society) about their (currently in redevelopment) Autism Access Award. I had already read about this award and have been aware that lots of the things we have been doing regarding ASD access lately are ticking a lot of boxes for this award. 

She also spoke about our responsibility to ensure accessibility, referring to legislation around making REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS. She urged people to remember that this relates to hidden disabilities as well as obvious physical ones.

She was very enthusiastic about the way that museums have started making efforts to be inclusive and welcoming to ASD visitors. Her job involves signposting clients to the support they are entitled to and in this time of austerity she has less and less to offer those people who need some help. To be able to offer a positive thing, something uplifting is more important than we might realise. 

Lorna Downer & Nadia Peters : What Is Autism?

     

Lorna Downer : Autism For The Arts

     

Nadia Peters : Autism For The Arts

Nadia and Lorna are from an organisation called Autism For The Arts. Nadia is an artist with a background in social work and Lorna is a fashion designer with an autistic son, Shiloh. They both had a wealth of experience and it was a privilege to hear them both speak.

They talked about how many autistic people are visual learners. This makes museums ideally placed, as much of our learning happens through looking and interacting with objects.

Autistic people are also very creative. This is, in part, a result of the lives they have led. For them, many of the things you might do without thinking are problems that have to be solved creatively.

In the consulting they did for Manchester Museum, they conducted some research. They heard back from parents of autistic children that they do not go to museums and the reasons they gave were things like 'my child is noisy' and 'my child jumps around a lot'. Nadia found it sad that parents were seeing their children as the problem rather than the museums. She said that a wheel chair user would not say they didn't visit because of their wheelchair, they would say the reason was that the museum had no lift. It is the same with autism, the issues come from the environment at least as much as from the individual, so we must be as serious about adapting for them as we are about making sure we have a lift.

What Is Autism?

"A neuro-developmental difference. A lifelong condition"

It is a spectrum including Asperger's Syndrome, PDD, PDDNOS, Atypical Autism and Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. It is estimated that 1 in 100 people in the UK have some kind of ASD. That is 700,000 people in this country. (That's a lot of museum tickets by the way!)

It is traditionally thought that more boys than girls are on the spectrum, but current thinking is that this is probably not the case. It may just be that girls are better at 'passing', or disguising their difficulties. There may be cultural reasons, perhaps our society is more accepting of difference in girls.

They showed us a diagram. Theirs was slightly different from this one as they had put SENSORY issues in the centre. There is more and more focus on this and sensory factors are now considered to be one of the most important issues when considering autism and people's behaviours.

As well as the five senses we all know about, there are two more

 - Vestibular (balance)

 - Proprioception (perception of things - eg someone might walk strangely as they cannot take for granted that the floor will remain horizontal)

Some sensory seeking behavious might be risky, for example head banging or biting themselves.

Lorna said something very moving at this point. She said that she absolutely takes her hat off to anyone with autism now that she knows how much they have to deal with. She thinks that people with autism are here to teach us. They teach us not to be inhibited or to worry about being 'different'. They teach us about true honesty.

For some people, sensory discomfort can manifest as pain. Something like an itchy label can feel like physical pain to someone with SPD.

How Can We Make Our Museum More Autism Friendly?

Pre-Visit Information. A social story (we have one of those!) is really helpful. Generally people prefer that not too much is changed in the museum, but that each family is able to plan ahead for what they might see.

Families still want the same high quality programming that everyone else gets. There's no need to dumb things down, just allow people to prepare.

ALWAYS consider the sensory issues of the museum There may be things that can cause discomfort at any point in a museum (Eg hand dryers in toilets, coffee machines in cafe)

Less Verbal Communication. Some people with autism might just not see the point of communicating (we all know that feeling!). They might have problems understaning nuances and gestures. Always use visual information when you can as a way to minimise the amout of verbal communication.

Remember that it is ok to say no to someone with autism. If someone is doing something you don't want them to (perhaps something unsafe, or invading your personal space) you can say no to them. 

Just remember that the person might need a little longer to process what's being said. Go slower and leave a good pause (6 seconds) to allow them to process and reply.

Top Tips

Keep Language Simple and Clear

6 Second Response Rule

Don't Shout

Give Honest Feedback

Be Aware of Distractions in the Environment

Be Aware of How a Person is Reacting in an Environment

Use Social Stories

Be Creative About Your Interactions

Don't Give Up on Quiet Ones - try and find another way in. keep giving them time to process.

Consider Use of Visual Prompts and Cues.

Ellen Lee & Davin Keen : Case Study from RAF Museum

Ellen Lee : Learning Producer : Old Royal Naval College

Ellen spoke about the work she was involved with in her previous role as Education Officer at the RAF museum. She was involved in setting up the DCN (Disability Co-Operative Network), which ties together people and work going on in disability in museums. 

RAF museum was one of the first to go through the process of becoming an Autism Access Award holder (from NAS). 

First step was to self-audit. Then they did some consulting which led to changes including

A small quiet-room with a dimmer switch.

Staff trained in autism awareness

The creation of an SEN focus group, including those on the autistic spectrum and their siblings.

They found that a page on their website about autism specifically got over 3000 hits in a month (visitors had to click on the access page and then from there onto the autism page)