Why?

• It is essential that children and young people with autism understand how autism affects their interactions with others and the environment.
• They also need to be aware of their characteristics including their strengths and challenges.
• From a very early age, parents or caregivers can prepare the child or young person with autism with a child. As outlined by Shore (2006), the earlier a child has an explanation about his or her differences, the better off he or she will be.

Parents are in the ideal position to let their child know their strengths.  This should be conducted in any way they can. For example, if a child displays an interest in taking apart and reassembling a clock or watch for those who are more challenged in verbal communication, this could be achieved using visuals or graphics.

For those children and young people with autism who are less verbally challenged, it is important to praise and highlight to the child or young person how this activity can be an important and useful skill   Praising and highlighting to the child helps to support and nurture the child’s interests as well as empowering him or her to transfer these mechanical skills to learning other areas. In addition to developing greater self-understanding, this may not only improve the individual’s overall wellbeing, it may also mean that these skills and talents can be encouraged successfully impacting the short and or long term academic or professional outcomes for the individual.

Within the school environment one technique, proposed by Shore (2006), involves using the child or young person’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) as a tool to teach him or her about self-advocacy and disclosure.  This simply involves engaging the child or young person as an active team player in the development of the IEP process, irrespective of where he or she is on the autism spectrum.   The key is to involve the child or young person to the extent of his or her ability, for example, some children and young people with autism could be encouraged to write a letter to express how they feel about the different subjects or activities they undertake in school.

Six Developmental Stages to Self-Advocacy Include:

1. Planning and Modelling
2. Facilitation and confidence building
3. Partnering
4. Moral Support
5. Taking a lead
6. Independent self-advocacy

Further reading

“The Secrets of Self-Advocacy: How to Make Sure You Take Care of You” by Dr  Stephen M. Shore, Autism Advocate, 2006, Vol. 44, No. 4