What it’s like to struggle to be in school and why getting a long-awaited diagnosis of autism doesn’t always bring the help families desperately need.

April 2022

How prioritising attendance means parents who can’t get their children to school are seen as feckless and their children as badly behaved. Meanwhile support for autistic children and their families is hard to access, until many are left at breaking point.

May 2022

Eliza finds out what happens when children leave the school system, what recovery looks like, and what alternatives there are to mainstream education when you know you need something different.

May 2022

Eliza investigates how far our broken school system is not just failing autistic young people but everyone. Has the focus on league tables and standards lost sight of our children as human beings?

May 2022

In this special panel session, Chloe (she/they) and Annette (she/they) are joined by Damian Milton (he/him), Bobbi Elman (she/her), Rachel Cullen (they/them), and Kieran Rose (he/him) to discuss the myth that Autistic people lack empathy, and the more likely translation issue between Autistic and non-autistic people, coined and theorised by Damian as the double empathy problem.

October 2021

This session aims to debunk the myths about what masking is and what it isn't, due to the erroneous narrative in the literature e.g. that it is "camouflaging", and is a considered, conscious, voluntary, and female-only experience.

May 2021

Kieran Rose on discovering his Autistic identity following becoming a parent, with Chloe Farahar,

July 2020

Six Autistic people, including Kieran, respond to media reporting of violence & victimisation by neurodivergent people.

August 2021

In this session, Katie Munday (they/them) and Kieran Rose (he/him) discuss Autistic masking, and Katie's newly coined term "Autistic shielding", and how many Autistic people are wrongly blamed for "hiding/camouflaging their autism".

March 2022

Kieran talks to the APUK team each month, live, on their Facebook Page. 

This wasn't strictly a podcast on autism! It was a chat to promote The Ausome Training 2024 Conference. 

But... Kieran and Evaleen don't talk much about the conference at all and it's a gnuinely useful, insightful and bite-size chat which is well worth a listen.

Kieran talk to Meghan about his newly published article on the Asperger's diagnosis.

We also talk about the neurodiversity movement, Autism as a disability, Autistic burnout, and lots more!

February 2000

Meghan has a series of You Tube Shorts featuring Kieran covering topics from What Is Autism and Autistic Burnout.

Meghan asks Kieran what educators should keep in mind when an autistic student enrolls in their classroom or at their school.

He gave us a lot to think about: neurodiversity, co-occurring conditions, functioning labels and levels, masking, the idea of the autism spectrum, and reviewed some key points in autism history.

Kieran discusses his history of being diagnosed at age 23 and all he went through before and since, inclusion and diversity, the deficit lens of autism, neurodiversity-affirming supports, autism myths, the history of autism and its false narrative, building on strengths, recognizing trauma, ableism, the social and medical models of disability, Double Empathy, masking and fawning, nonsense goals that providers set for our children, monotropism, context and code switching, and learning from autistic self-advocates. Kieran is also joined by Dr Dr. Virginia Spielmann.

August 2021

Kieran discusses the topics of functioning labels, theory of mind and good intentions of autism providers who are or aren’t neurodivergent themselves.

July 2022

Part 2 of this pair of episodes.

August 2021

In this episode, we discuss Dr. Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose’s newly published book entitled, Autistic Masking: Understanding Identity Management and the Role of Stigma. We discuss what Autistic Masking is, compare the topic of Impression Management in Personality Psychology with Autistic Masking, talk about state versus trait theories and how masking is different and can be a lot more serious, about intersectionality and trauma, and about how all of this impacts autistic identity and the need for research in this area.

November 2023

Masking is something we all do to project an "acceptable" version of ourselves - but for those of us who are autistic, it can feel like something we do to survive. It's hard for families and friends to spot, let alone educational and medical professions, yet masking can lead to misdiagnosis and burnout so it's vital we all understand it. Our autistic guests Kieran Rose, Dr Amy Pearson and Jodie Smitten explain what masking looks like, why people do it, and how difficult it is to stop.

September 2022

Every child and young person is different, but it is possible to spot the signs of autistic masking. Our guests say families should trust their instincts and be prepared to advocate for their child if professionals do not recognise their masking. They also discuss autistic burnout and stereotypes around masking.

October 2022

June 2022

Around a year ago I was made aware of a research paper by Kieran Rose. Some of the connections in his paper helped me make around the Autistic experience of masking where truly game changing for me. It helped me understand how stigma and prejudice around what is 'normal' and 'acceptable' in our culture plays a huge part in why Autistic people mask. It also made me question how I have approach teaching things like 'social skills' and giving support and advice to Autistic children and young people in the past, as well as some of the early approaches I used that could well have been feeding into that need to mask for fear of being 'different.'

In this episode we chat about this, the paper and some of the problematic ideas that have been part of this issue. As well as trying to get our heads around ways of moving forward.

November 2021

Chris and James interview Kieran Rose about the threat to mental health for the autistic and wider autism community during the Coronavirus / Covid-19 pandemic.

We talk about some of the main challenges the community will be experiencing during Covid-19, about how to cope and reduce anxiety, the intersections between these challenges and the wider socio-cultural stigmatising narratives about autism, and the importance of recognising the opportunities for social and cultural learning and change that the current social circumstances provide. We also answered a range of interesting questions from the audience.

April 2020

Join Autistic writer, consultant, trainer and speaker, Kieran Rose as he explores his favourite stims, how they relate to his sensory profile, and how crucial they are during the COVID-19 crisis.

May 2020

"A whole lifelong developmental embodying experience, when you look at the black community and they talk about passing, the LGBTQIA community and they talk about the closet. These are notions that marginalized groups talk about all the time. The autistic experience to this is often unique to autistic people in terms of how we do that. This the narrative of masking that is completely missed because we can pick it up, put it back on, and take it off again. The exhaustion that takes is not taken into account properly, says" Kieran Rose. Kieran joins us to talk about the impact of masking, burnout, and the concept of monotropism to the autistic community.

March 2021

It’s fine to be aware and even try and understand autism but actually what matters most is acceptance. This is the view of Kieran Rose, also known as The Autistic Advocate. Kieran has autism so he speaks from personal experiences and explains why he believes that acceptance is what is needed even more than awareness.

Kieran shares his personal journey and provides practical advice for both parents and young people with autism on how to manage the challenges they will face. He also discusses the way people with autism are often stereotyped and the impact that has. He also talks about what he sees as an industry that has been built around autism, and how that is actually contributing to delaying real change.

Kieran might be talking specifically about autism, but the really his message applies to everyone with an additional need. Barriers would fall much quicker, especially in things like employment, if people focused on positive acceptance of each individual’s strengths and their weaknesses, not just passive awareness.

September 2019

"Our understanding of masking up until talking about this has been really, really limited, because it hasn't looked at the trauma aspect, it hasn't looked at the identity aspect. It's really been this superficial notion of, "Oh look, here's a social situation. I'm gonna pop a mask on, be a different person, and then at the end of it, I'll take it off again." Hopefully, what we want from this, is to encourage people to look at this in a much more deeper way, and not be as superficial around this narrative", says Kieran Rose. 

Kieran joins this episode to discuss his new book that he co-wrote with Dr. Amy Pearson Autistic Masking: Understanding Identity Management and the Role of Stigma.

July 2023

In this episode Stacy and Torrin are joined by author, public speaker, and researcher Kieran Rose to discuss autism related topics ranging from sensory issues, to masking, to how autism fits within intersectionality.

In this episode:
-Kieran talks about his new book all about autistic masking
-Is gendered autism real?
-Sensory issues, explained
-Autism and intersectionality

October 2023