This October, the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador is celebrating Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month with the theme of “Ask About Autism”. The (genius) brainchild of the Advocacy and Communications Manager, Tess Hemeon, Ask About Autism involves activities all month long encouraging people to ask questions to professionals and autistics about autism. Something I can thoroughly get behind, because how can we teach people what they want to know if they don’t ask? (Yes, we can tell people things; but those may not be the things they feel they need to know.)

October 1st, there was a flash mob in Pippy Park (in St. John’s) that spelled out the word “ASK” and was filmed from above; the YouTube video is available on the ASNL channel.

And tonight, there was a livestreaming event of about 40 minutes of questions to a pediatrician, a parent, a speech language pathologist, and yours truly, about autism. The questions raised were ones that parents and staff have asked the ASNL, and there were two questions that came in through the chat while we were doing the livestream. The video of that is embedded below.

It went so well that Tess wants to do livestreaming events regularly; both panels and things like one-to-one interviews.

The other event that has been planned so far is a booth at the Avalon Mall on October 26th from 4pm to 8pm  that will be manned by adult autistics, available to answer questions. I’ve volunteered for that as well.

Three cheers for Tess, for all her efforts thus far for this month (and to Greg Knott, who kept the livestreaming going tonight).

‘Later, all!
😃 tagÂûght