Working with Children with Autism

Date: August 29th, September 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th

Time: 7-8pm

Place: Forest Hill Community Space, Forest Hill Shopping Centre

I was so pleased to have collaborated with Corry Skilbeck (retired educational consultant), Joyce Wan (occupational therapist), Joy Huang (play therapist) and Christal Lau (play therapist) in this multidisciplinary workshop for Forest Hill Community Space.

Not only was it a great first experience of organisation and facilitating a workshop, but to do it with friend and colleagues made it all the more special!

The inspiration for this workshop came from my work with neurodivergent children. Many of them are kinder-aged and about to transition into primary school. I work closely with many Autistic children, and I’ve come to realize that a large part of speech therapy involves educating adults on how to interact with Autistic children in a supportive and respectful way. I wanted to provide a succinct presentation to help adults understand that much of the behaviours of concerns that they were seeing, were really I’m-trying-to-express-myself behaviours that many adults didn’t understand.

As I developed the idea, I also found that my colleagues from various professional backgrounds had very different bu equally valuable skillsets when working with Autistic children. All of these little techniques are so valuable in building better connection and understanding of Autistic children. I knew I had to find a way to bring this collective knowledge and share it with people who struggle to work with Autistic children. Thus, the idea of this workshop was born!

I was absolutely thrilled to deliver this workshop alongside such talented professionals. I hope the attendees walked away with helpful tips and strategies to build more meaningful, respectful connections with the Autistic children in their lives.