“If the dynamic of autistic burnout really is related to spending more resources coping than one has, I’m not sure the real leverage in avoiding burnout resides with the autistic person alone.”
Tag: AASPIRE
Lily Levy at INSAR 2018 [image: Lily Levy, a white British woman, presenting a poster at an autism conference.] INSAR 2019, the International Meeting For Autism Research, starts in three days. Before we begin our coverage, we’d like to emphasize research and themes from last year’s conference INSAR 2018, in Rotterdam—so we can proceed with a grounded sense of how the two conference’s priorities compare and contrast, especially in terms of research that affects autistic people’s quality of life (QoL). A consistent QoL theme of INSAR 2018 was autistic camouflaging, also known as “masking” or “passing.” We spoke with Lily Levy, who led the INSAR 2018 presentation For Better or for Worse? Social Camouflaging, Mental Health and Wellbeing in Autistic Adults. Content note: Discussion of suidicality, bullying, and trauma. Shannon Rosa of TPGA: I’m at INSAR 2018 with Lily Levy, whose group presented the poster on Social Camouflaging, Mental Health and Wellbeing…
AASPIRE www.aaspire.org Researchers with the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE), have found that autistic adults, who represent roughly 1 percent of the adult population in the U.S., report significantly worse health care experiences than their non-autistic peers. The study included an online survey of 209 autistic adults and 228 non-autistic adults. Autistic adults reported more unmet healthcare needs, more frequent use of the Emergency Department, and less use of preventative services like Pap smears. They also reported lower satisfaction with provider communication, and less comfort in navigating the healthcare system or managing their health. AASPIRE Co-Director and principle investigator of the study, Dr. Christina Nicolaidis, said, “As a primary care provider, I know that our healthcare system is not always set up to offer high quality care to adults on the autism spectrum. However, I was saddened to see how large the disparities were. We really…