Autistic Adults and Social Narratives

Autistic Adults and Social Narratives

Published March 21, 2021

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Welcome everyone to Today’s Autistic Moment: A Podcast for Autistic Adults by An Autistic Adult.  My name is Philip King-Lowe, the owner, producer, and host, and I am an Autistic Adult.

This first segment of Today’s Autistic Moment is sponsored by The Autism Society of Minnesota: Minnesota’s First Autism Resource.  The Autism Society of Minnesota has been supporting Minnesota’s autism community for 50 years.  Visit them online at ausm.org to register for the Conference April 21^st – 24^th.   

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Autistic Adults have challenges with executive functioning to manage day to day self-care.  When the unexpected happens like an auto accident or a routine change, the anxiety and stress are overwhelming.  In those moments of high anxiety and chaos, Autistic Adults need tools to help them put themselves in an order to get back to a space where we can begin to put life back together again.  Social narratives are a tool that Autistic Adults can use to map out the steps they can take in any given situation.  Social narratives are a great way to plan a social outing, how to clean up your room, or find your way through the hallways of a large building.

Eric Ringgenberg is the Director of Education Programs at The Autism Society of Minnesota.  Eric gives presentations for certification classes, skillshops and training courses for autistic people and other professionals who work with autistic individuals.  As my guest today, Eric will give some great advice about what social narratives are, and how they can be put together and used to help Autistic Adults manage their lives. 

And now I present Autistic Adults and Social Narratives with my guest Eric Ringgenberg.

Philip King-Lowe
So, Eric, thank you for coming on to an episode of Today's Autistic Moment. I'm glad you're here. It is my privilege to work with you. As an education more assistant at the Autism Society of Minnesota. A couple years ago, I sat in, I took the certification Class A few years ago. And one area that I really got a lot of helpful information about was when you talked about social narratives, your presentation on that matter was really clear. And I loved how you put that together. So as I was thinking about doing something about social narratives, um, I'm thinking about it in the context of adults.

Um, because as adults, we may not have all those supports that parent, you know, that a parent is helping, you know, with, with with, you know, doing social narratives. So, I want to give my listeners some information about about applying social narratives as autistic adults. So with that, let me ask you, my first question. And that question, of course, is, what information to autistic adults and our caregivers need to know about in terms of social narratives for autistic adults? 

Eric Ringgenberg
Sure, thank you. And Absolutely, thank you for having me on the podcast, before I start to describe them and answer your question, I'm going to kind of present a scenario. So if you can kind of envision this, put yourself into into this spot, let's say that you, you go somewhere and you arrive at your destination. But once you get there, you don't have any idea of where to go, you're not sure what to do, you're not sure how to proceed and accomplish what you are setting out to do. riff, put yourself in that situation, and then think about how might you feel and how you would seek to move forward in this scenario. For some people, that sort of situation may be exciting, or exhilarating. But for many people that sense, that sort of sense scenario or situation creates a lot of anxiety. And that can be a big barrier to accessing the community. And so I start with that scenario, because really, what social narratives are is a way to try to address that sort of situation. Social narrative is really a short simple story, that using words and pictures, it visually represents some sort of social situation or social context, explains what to do and some of the expected social behaviors that go along with those circumstances. So really, what a social narrative tries to do is connect the important details of that setting or that social social situation and helps a person to understand the social context. And so that means not just explaining what to do, but why it's important to do that, because sometimes that's the missing information for individuals who are autistic or may have other neuro diversities. Sometimes they may understand what's expected of them, but it may not be as an intuitive to know why that's what's expected of them. And so that's just as critical to explain. Usually Or, or I'd say most often, social stories are developed and used as a individual strategy. So they're individualized to the person that's being written for in terms of the language level that's used the vocabulary, etc. With that said, we also have done some work at the Autism Society of Minnesota to work with different venues, different organizations, different events, to also create social narratives that can be accessed in order to promote inclusion and accessibility within the community and within those events. And so places like the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Walker Art Center, I did one not too long ago for the Minnesota Wild and the Xcel Energy Center. But we really promote places taking the initiative, because as of now, it's not required of them to do so. But this is something that they can do to really demonstrate not only that they can say or put out on paper that they want to be more accessible and inclusive, but to actually demonstrate that they're putting forth and effort in order to do so. And so as I mentioned, usually this will pair words and text along with pictures, you know, there's that phrase that says a photos worth 1000 words, or however it goes. And so I was really stressed to people, rather than using a clipart. Rather than using a stock image, as much as you can take actual photos of what people can expect. Because then not only do you have the written description, but if it's somewhere that you've never been before, it's something you haven't experienced, you could actually get a picture of what it looks like and going in with that sort of information can really be make or break the difference between being able to access those sorts of settings or not. 

Commercial Break I

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The guests on Today’s Autistic Moment bring a lot of essential information for Autistic Adults.  Their ability to give advice that assists us feel safer being ourselves and advocating for Autistic Adults, is worth every point they make. Therefore, I have decided to add a third commercial break and fourth segment to each show beginning with the first episode on April 5^th.

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Philip King-Lowe 
Let's pick up where you were talking about social narratives helping out, like, at the museums and such. And I believe what you were trying to say, correct me if I'm wrong, that the social narratives, they help autistic individuals. They basically plan their paths to how they're going to have a particular experience, doing, say, walking around a museum or walking around a place so that they can actually take in what it is that they're wanting to take in there. Is that where you're going with that?

Eric Ringgenberg
Yeah, it definitely can involve knowing where to go and kind of planning your route or sequence of activities. But also, it covers important things like how to get to where you're going. Once you get in, you know, usually there's some sort of routine when you enter a place whether you have to purchase a ticket or an admission or something else. It's nice to know in advance what that's going to look like and what the expectation is, for example, some places that you go to such as a Xcel Energy Center or US Bank Stadium, you have to go through a security checkpoints, and that can be very anxiety provoking for some play. Oh, talking through what that routine is and what those steps involve can help people to feel more comfortable with going through that sort of process?

Philip King-Lowe
Yeah. I also, in my introduction, I've mentioned about how social narratives can be particularly helpful with executive functioning. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Eric Ringgenberg 
Yeah. So executive functioning, as you know, really boils down to kind of planning and organizing yourself and working towards goals that you have, whether those are short term or more long term. So social narratives can really help to just organize your thoughts and your plan. So that you can go through a sequence of steps that you have somewhat thought out or has been laid out for you. So that in the moment, you know, off the cuff, you aren't always having to do that, you know, consistently through your visit. So it takes some of those some of those needs off of the off of your executive functioning so that you can focus those skills on others.

Philip King-Lowe 
Yeah. Well, one of the things questions I have, that I think I can can sense coming from some autistic adults is, I have this issue with my own issues with executive functioning, how can I associate adult with executive functioning? plan? A social narrative for myself? How does that work? 

Eric Ringgenberg 
Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. And as I was kind of preparing my thoughts for this segment, really, I kind of broke it down into two avenues. We can talk about, you know, I just mentioned how we've worked with organizations for them to prepare and make available social narratives for individuals, we also can talk about individuals taking it upon themselves to work on writing their own. So let's talk about that.

Philip King-Lowe
Please,

Eric Ringgenberg
I do think that there are some some barriers to that process, but by no means is it? You know, is it not impossible for someone who is autistic to create their own social narrative. For one, I think many people are aware of this tool in this strategy. But we can't say with certainty that everyone is. So the first step is to know, you know, what, this is a little bit of the background I described, of why they can be useful, and just knowing that this sort of support exists. The other thing is just like any other sort of written, you know, whether you write poetry or or, or, you know, news articles, any sort of written writing is a skill, and it takes work. And so practicing and getting experience writing social narratives, is something that across the board, no one's going to be perfect at it right away. It takes it takes practice, it takes experience. And I think what you are getting that, too, is that, as I described, really, the purpose of this tool is to provide information that is needed, but that person may not be aware of. And so I think the question you ask is, how do I write a social narrative if I don't know the information, and so there's things that can be done. You know, when I'm working on a social narrative, whether it's for a group of people or for one person, the first step is really gathering information. So a lot of times, I'm visiting someone's website, looking for photos, looking for information about it. So just kind of collecting information is the first step before you even start trying to write it out. If there's information that is needed, that you feel you don't have, I always like to have at least one other person read through a narrative before I share it with someone else. Because once again, just like any other writing you do it's get to it's good to get feedback. Sometimes things make sense to you, but upon someone else reading it, they may say, this was a little confusing, or it felt like this was missing. And I say, you know, Oh, that makes sense. You know, I knew that but because I didn't write it down by you reading it, we kind of figured out what was missing. And so what I would say is if you're looking to write your own social narratives, especially for the first time, don't be afraid to try that's perfectly fine. seek feedback from someone that maybe has experience with writing them previously. Also, if it's specific to a certain context, or routine or activity, maybe find someone Who has experienced that before. So for example, let's say that you had to, you know, go to the DMV to get your license renewed or something. And you've never done that before, they don't have a social narrative available for you. So you want a better understanding of what that process looks like so that you can review it before you go, maybe a friend, a family member, etc, find someone who has gone there and done that, and experienced it and say, can you review this? Can you talk to me about what your experience was like? Is there anything that you wish you would have known before you went there, etc. So getting feedback from others who have experienced, whatever it is, the topic that you're trying to focus on or address would be another great step as you're looking to develop them? More individually? Okay,

Philip King-Lowe 
That sounds good.

Philip King-Lowe
Well, you've already mentioned the word barrier, and we're moving right along pretty well. So let me ask that second question. What are the barriers for autistic adults of all ages when it comes to social narratives, and we know that one of those barriers is there are autistic adults, not all of them, because we don't want to generalize too much here, because none of us is exactly the same. That communicating is one of our biggest challenges, and also communicating with others what our challenges might be, to help us to plan like a social narrative. Um, again, and finding those, you know, for many of us autistic, autistics, just finding individuals we trust to help us do those things is always some kind of challenge. And so, you know, like I say, you know, I think I sense that some may feel well, this is not some, these are not my strong points, how do I actually learn how to develop social narratives to help me do the tasks that I need to do?

Eric Ringgenberg
Yeah, we talked about, you know, if we just talked about some of the barriers of, of, especially writing them individually, I think another barrier is, like I said, it's not required or mandatory at this point that all public venues, you know, provide this sort of support the way that I hired to do for other things that fall under the ADA, etc, or etc. I do hope that whether it's at the state level or the national level, in the not too far future, we will go back and continue to add things like social narratives and some of the different sensory considerations into our legislation around accessibility. But just because it's not required doesn't mean someone can't do it, or take it on, and it's not a worthwhile endeavor. So continuing to provide that access to that availability of ones that are already produced is definitely a way to to try to get over the some of those barriers. The other thing too, is I think, as you're well aware, there's this unnecessary belief or or mindset that as autistic individuals move from childhood and do adolescence into adulthood, and things like social narratives that they've received throughout their life that are highly effective. For some reason, as soon as individuals leave school, some people think that all of a sudden, we don't need to do that anymore, or they're not needed or they're not effective, etc. So pushing back against that, that incorrect assumption and promoting the idea that just like we are making them available for for younger individuals. Let's also think about some of the some of the situations that adults may face I mentioned going to the DMV, especially things that can occur that are unexpected, such as maybe getting in a car accident for any carry on nervy. If you could pull out a social narrative to review quickly before you engage with that other driver. That could be really helpful to kind of calm some nerves to remind you of these other things  Yeah, as I was saying, let's say you get in a minor car accident, a fender bender. That's, that's unexpected for everyone. That raises my anxiety, certainly. But once again, if that happens, being able to pull out a short social narrative to review, to clarify, here are the things I need to do that can go a long way to helping you be successful in what's a pretty stressful social situation. And so I think finding those things that are scenarios that are probably less applicable to younger individuals, and focusing on putting those out there, you know, like I said, a lot of times, these are written for an individual, but we can also create a general templates that then someone could individualize as they need. And so that way, they don't have to start from scratch. But give them a framework to work with an outline. And then if they need to tweak it a little bit, that's much less work than having to start from scratch. And so the other thing I would add is, there are a number of resources out there that can assist you in understanding how to write a social narrative. And so I would encourage you to seek those out, there are some also kind of collections or small libraries where people have tried to assemble different social narratives. And you're always welcome to reach out to the Autism Society of Minnesota, we're always happy to feedback. If you're working on a social narrative and want someone to give it a once over who has some experience, just reach out and we'd be happy to provide that sort of support. 

Philip King-Lowe
Yeah, after after this interview is done. If you would send me some of those online, some of those resources online, I can include them in my Autism Resources Links there, so people can find them. Yeah, well, I think that one of the barriers that can, of course exists is that autistic adults often need something to help them for what is unplanned for what is unpredictable. So what I hear you saying is, and again, correct me if I'm going down the wrong place with this, but perhaps it might be a good idea to do some pre planning, such as if I were in a, in an auto accident, here's the social narrative of some steps I will need to follow and kind of have that around. So that if one is in a situation like that, one can go back to that and say, this is something I should do. Now, of course, car accidents, or no car accidents and other things like, you know, even planning for, you know, all of the many of the unexpected that could can occur. Um, you know, following a social narrative, probably isn't going to be so nice and clean. But at least it provides some kind of, you know, possible structure that someone can go back to, to kind of help them remember that this particular situation is not an end all be all, but that there is a path to work through that. 

Eric Ringgenberg
Is that is exactly as, especially if something unexpected happens, we all get that rush of stress and anxiety, and then when you're on the spot and you're trying to think, alright, what do I need to make sure I do, that can be really hard to just recall in that situation. And so by putting in a little thought on the front end, before that happens, and then having that ready to pull out, it's just a way of supporting yourself or others, so that you can take some of that, that pressure in the moment off of you and say, you know, it doesn't necessarily make it mean it's gonna it's gonna make the situation easy, but at least then you have something to look to to say, Alright, I need to make sure I do this and this and this, and you don't just kind of leave yourself to chance to make sure that you, you navigate it the way that you are would want

Philip King-Lowe
Right. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz those moments of high anxiety where many of us on the spectrum have that have those anxiety disorders or, you know, of course, there's many other disorders associated with being autistic, everything from anxiety disorders, to OCD to, to, you know, we couldn't we could name them all day. But the point is, is that a social narrative can actually be a good tool for distressing, or taking that stress off, rather than adding that stress on. Because, you know, that barrier of stress, um, you know, can indeed, hinder, maybe I say, maybe a social narrative. But the purpose of the social narrative is to help reduce that anxiety, not cost more.

Eric Ringgenberg  
Yeah. And we talked about a pretty specific example. But you could even write one that just generally is, you know, we all know that many individuals, both autistic and non autistic don't like unexpected change. And so right, you write a social narrative about when something unexpected happens, and kind of just off the cuff, it could be like, you know, the first, the first sentence could acknowledge that I do not like unexpected change, right? Sometimes that happens, when unexpected change occurs, I can and then kind of fill in some coping strategies, and everyone has their own, but it's kind of like almost, you're giving your future self a pep talk in a way, like you're writing these things down, so that when that stress does hit you, you kind of pull it out and remind yourself, yeah, this does kind of suck. But these are the things I can do to support myself. Yeah,

Philip King-Lowe 
I also think that social narratives could be a great way of planning what to do in the event of a sensory overload. For me, the key is knowing exactly what I'm experiencing, and what to do when I'm experiencing it. But some autistic adults could actually use a social narrative to remind themselves, when I am in sensory overload, this is what I will do, I will, you know, plan these steps, I will tell somebody, I will withdraw into a space by myself, I will spend this time fidgeting or doing something I like, until I am feeling like I can communicate more clearly, or something like that. I mean, those social narratives are a great way to plan for those things that happen. Um, so that, you know, there can be some of that effective communication that needs to happen with caregivers and others around them. And, you know, this is where I always interject by saying, the more one, the more one knows their own autism, the better off they are, because then they can use the search social narratives, to plan for these, you know, those things that happen to autistics.

Eric Ringgenberg
Yeah, I like the example you shared. And if you if you remember from certification, you know, this is a little separate, so we don't have to go too far into it. But another thing that can pair well with a social narrative is that strategy called a power card. And for what you described with the sensory overload, I could see having a social narrative that's more lengthy, that maybe you read, you know, when you wake up in the morning, or once a week, whatever makes sense to you. But in the moment, when you are actually experiencing that sensory overload, you're probably not going to want something that is, you know, paragraphs long. So that's where something like a power card, which is basically a very condensed version, and like you said, maybe that's just listing the four or five steps to take. That's how they could kind of complement each other. So like I said, you have a narrative, you review it periodically, just to refresh and remind yourself, maybe that in your wallet or your purse, you have about an index size, mini version that doesn't include everything, but it basically lists out once that sensory overload starts to hit, you pull it out, you look at it, and then you start going down the steps.

Commercial Break II

Future Shows

Coming up on April 5^th, Autistic Adults and Autism Acceptance.  April is Autism Acceptance Month.  While the idea of autism awareness is not bad, it still limits the potential of autistics to be taken seriously as valuable members of society. People can be aware of autistic adults, and still not accept us.  Ellie Wilson, the Executive Director of The Autism Society of Minnesota joins me to talk about the importance of moving from autism awareness to autism acceptance. Join Ellie and me for this installment.

On April 19^th, I will publish the installment Autistic Adults and Community-Based Services.  Community-Based Services are suppose to help Autistic Adults with medical insurance, getting a PCA, Homemaker, Transportation, Food Assistance, Child-care, Disabilities services, etc.  Yet the application process is so very complicated. The case workers, PCA’s and Independent Living Skills workers are not well trained to know what autism looks like.  Many Autistic Adults have experienced case managers being rude, non-responsive and even abusive.  Sara Swan the founder of Looking Forward Life Coaching joins me to talk about these important issues and provide some great advice.  While we won’t solve all of the problems that exist, we will begin bringing this topic to a more publicized conversation to work towards some kind of public policy change.

Thank you for listening to Today’s Autistic Moment.

Philip King-Lowe
Yeah, exactly. And I love where this conversation is going, because that's going right into my third and final question. And that is what steps do autistic adults in our in our supporters need to take to advocate for our needs. And let's begin by saying social narratives are a perfect way for autistics to self advocate, because that social narrative gives them gives us one of those really clear tools as to how to do that.

Eric Ringgenberg 
Yeah, what I would what I would request is, if you are going somewhere that you haven't been for the first time, whether that's a museum a venue and event, a look and see if they have a social narrative created, a lot of times on their website, it will either be under a drop down related to kind of planning your visit, another spot that they say they sometimes land is within some of the accessibility sort of materials. But look for one, if you're going somewhere if you're doing something, especially if you haven't been there before. And then if you can't find it, call or email, contact the place and ask them if they have one, because sometimes they just get buried under layers of web pages. And sometimes they're not as easy to find as I would like, the is to if they don't have one, by calling and requesting, we're advocating for that sort of support that like I said, play isn't required. But if people are calling and asking, and you're giving a little description of what it is, and how it can support and help to be inclusive of all walls. That's a big step, advocacy wise, the other thing I would encourage you to do, like I already mentioned, is just look out, and I'll share some ways that you can post, but look for resources and gather resources related to writing these and practice. That's how you're going to learn how to do this practice, get feedback, don't be afraid to try it out. And if it's not perfect, that's okay, it's a lot better than than not having anything at all, than to have that that's maybe still a little bit of a work in progress. 

Philip King-Lowe 
Yeah, I agree with that. I think social narratives are also a great way of say dealing with many of those sensory sensitivities, I can think of a really great example of where a social narrative might be, might be applicable. And that is like, someone is going to plan someone who is autistic, is going to plan to visit a different restaurant, a restaurant they've never been to before. So a great thing for social narrative by to be I'm visiting going to be going to a restaurant I've never been to before. So number one, I'm going to look up their website, and I'm going to look for information about the restaurant and also information about the menu and sort of take a look at menu items and see if there was something you know, to look beforehand, at some things that might work for me and other things that might not work for me. And pre plan that, that that process. And then you know, um, you know, as you say, um, you know, maybe call them and say, Can you tell me a little bit about your lighting? You know, what your lighting lighting is? Like? Can you tell me a little bit more about what times are more crowded or less crowded, you can, you know, do some research about, you know, on tune you're telling me about whether you have spicier foods versus less spicier, but depending on someone's, you know, ability to digest certain things. I mean, you can use, you can create a social narrative around each of those steps to help you plan for something new and unexpected to find some of your more predictable, predictable responses to things. You know, I mean, you know, this is again, where I continue to stress, knowing your Autism is important, but also when we communicate with others, other end of other people, whether it be restaurant owners, or or librarians or teachers or anything like that, and explain to them what we need. You know why we're asking questions. This is all part of telling our stories about what being autistic is like for us. And it gives them a little bit of an opportunity to think about how they may respond to that information.

Eric Ringgenberg  
Absolutely. I totally agree. Whenever you're self advocating, you also are advocating on behalf of the communities that you identify with what whoever? 

Philip King-Lowe 
Yeah, exactly. And social narratives, you know, the word narrative is connected with the word story. And, you know, I like to think I'm maybe perhaps a social narrative can be, can be how I retell that story to myself, to remind myself that, you know, Wherever I am, whatever I happen to be facing at this point in time is not an end unto itself, but that I can find ways of coping with a particular situation. Um, I think that one of those places where I can think of an autistic adult needing to advocate for themselves, um, we all know that ableism plays a mean role in things to know why are you why somebody might be going to what looks like an elementary form of trying to plan steps. And I think I can hear someone someone having to explain to a caregiver, or to somebody who looks around them about why they need to do these things. You know, and that it's not just a matter of a maturity call a maturity judgment, here, it's a, it's about being able to function on a day to day basis to be as independent as necessary. And also to have some sense of what what we can, in fact, achieve. So that we feel like we're actually achieving things for ourselves. I think we can add to any of that. 

Eric Ringgenberg
Yeah, you know, what comes to mind, for me, is my feeling that autistic individuals are good at many, many things, what often is challenging, is doing more than one of those things at the same time. And so it's not that you can't do it, it's that, to use this example of going somewhere for the first time, it's not that you can't do that, or navigate the sensory or, or figure out where to go, it's the combination of having to do that all at once. That was a challenge. And so things like social narrative, take some of that off of your mental plate, metaphorically. So that then you don't have to focus on that all at once. You don't have to try to hold all of that in mind and make sense of it and process and figure it out. It's about taking some of these skills, that it's not that you don't have the skill, once again, it's that if you're asked to do that, and that and that, and that all simultaneously, that's just not the natural skill set of the autistic brain. And so that's why something like a social narrative helps to offload one or more of those skills and abilities and needs, so that then you can focus on other things. Or you can take them things a little bit more one at a time, versus trying to just navigate it all at once. Because that's when it becomes overwhelming, and you shut down or you have to escape. And so really, to me, that's that's why this is needed. It's not because you can't do things are you can't be independent. It's that rather than saying, well, because you can't do these all at once. Now someone has to do one of them for you. No, you can do it all for yourself. You can support yourself through strategies like this, that are really effective for a variety of needs and a variety of individuals. Right?

Philip King-Lowe 
Yeah. Yeah. Um, what might be some first steps that you might suggest? Perhaps we already mentioned this, for some people who have never really done a social narrative before? What are some ideas you might have about how people can learn how to do those things?

Eric Ringgenberg  
Yeah, well, like I said, I'll follow up with some suggestions for resources on how to write them. I really think the first step is just to look at some social narratives to see some that have been created to get a feel for kind of how they are structured. There's no one right or wrong way to do it. So by looking at different examples, you may see things that's like, I really like how they did this here. This didn't do as much for me, but I think along with developing or collecting some resources that you can use to help guide you through the process, I think a great place to start is just to look for examples that are out there. So that you can start to get a feel for what a finished product can look like. And once again, they can take a variety of shapes and forms depending on what the goal is. And so that way, you can get a little idea of what might work best for you. Yeah,

Philip King-Lowe 
I think those, that's all really good information, Eric. Um, and so I think this is definitely something that my listeners will take a great interest in, on, you know, we all we, I see autistic adults, and, you know, regardless of where we think we fit on the spectrum, however we define that, um, you know, that this is an opportunity for us to really develop a good sense of self care. Because we know that part of social narratives is to help us with our daily self care, which is one of our greatest challenges for many autistic adults. So a lot of this is about self care, isn't it?

Eric Ringgenberg  
It is. It is. One way or another. I'd say that this is about promoting independence. And and as you mentioned, successful social interactions and taking care of yourself. Exactly.

Philip King-Lowe 
Yeah. Yeah, we know that. Well, Eric, you've given us a lot of information to think about here. And I think the information is really, really important and will be well received. And so the last part I want to leave my listeners with, is that if anyone has any questions of you, how can they contact you? Excuse me?

Eric Ringgenberg
Ah, yes, absolutely. Feel free to email me if you'd like to connect directly. My email is ERINGGENBERG@ausm.org. I'm going to say that one more time, because it's a little bit of a mouthful. ERINGGERBERG@ausm.org. Otherwise, visit a usm.org. Our website, you can also find information there or use that to get in touch with me. And thank you very much for this opportunity to speak about this

Philip King-Lowe
topic. You're welcome. You're welcome. And as always, my listeners can always find me either at todaysautisticmoment.com, or you can also email me at PKLowe@todaysautisticmoment.com. Thank you very much, Eric.

Eric Ringgenberg
Absolutely

Transcribed by https://otter.ai 

Autistic Community Bulletin Board

The 2021 AuSM Summer Recreation Cataloge/AuSM’s Guide to Sensory-Friendly Minnesota is now available on AuSM’s website.  The Catalogue contains information about activities with time sensitive registration information, skillshops, training workshops and summer camps.  Don’t miss these amazing opportunities for Minnesota’s autism community.

On April 13^th, from 7-9pm I will be presenting a virtual Skillshop about Aging Autistic Adults at the Autism Society of Minnesota.  Many of you may have listened to my episode Aging Autistic Adults: What We Needed Yesterday with Dr. Theresa Regan.  During the virtual skillshop I will mention some of what Dr. Regan spoke of, with some additional information about the barriers for aging autistic adults and some self-advocacy. 

On April 27^th, from 7-9pm, Beth Pitchford will present a skillshop called Friendship: How to Find and Keep Friends as An Autistic Adult.  Many people on the autistic spectrum have lots of social challenges to find and maintain friendships.  Beth will give some tips for building strong friendships and maintaining them during the COVID-19 pandemic while we need to keep social distancing.

Steps for Autism in Minnesota will take place on Sunday, May 23^rd, 2021 from 9am to 12pm at Como Lakeside Pavilion on 1360 Lexington Pkwy. N. in St. Paul, MN

Join the Autism Society of Minnesota for the Virtual Joint Conference April 21^st through the 24^th.  You’ll learn from five amazing keynote speakers and dozens of breakout sessions of various topics.  Visit ausm.org to register and learn about other educational opportunities.

Conclusion

Please send an email to PKLowe@todaysautisticmoment.com todaysautisticmoment@gmail.com if you are attending the conference and would like to make an appointment to talk about being a guest or having a topic suggestion.  See the page for MN Autism State Conference on todaysautisticmoment.com.  Please follow Today’s Autistic Moment on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linked In.

Thank you for listening to Today’s Autistic Moment: A Podcast for Autistic Adults by An Autistic Adult.