Recommended Resources and Supports for late-identified Autistic Adults

“Can you recommend some neuro-affirming resources?” is one of the most common questions I am asked by new clients. Because as we FINALLY understand who we are, understand  ourselves to be Autistic, we need more, we want to know all there is to know!

When I first researched the Autistic experience, following my own late identification, all I could find were resources for children, or parents of children, or for schools these children attend (and for the most part how to encourage children to be less Autistic, particularly in their behaviour and communication).

Nothing neuro-affirming, nothing from the mind of the Autistic person, nothing that was written from the neurodiversity perspective and nothing that was helpful for me (or dare I say any Autistic person).

There is nothing worse than that familiar despair of being half way through a book / research paper and seeing the red flags of deficit-based language and realising that you are, once again, down the wrong path. A path that has caused so much damage to me and the Autistic community.

So here goes – I have listed below some of the neuro-affirming resources I have appreciated, at times fist pumped the air with joy when reading, and refer to often in my work.

For the most part I have found autobiographies by Autistic people the most informative as they talk about the internalised experience of the Autist as opposed to ‘expert’ led books that focus on the external view of what it is to be Autistic – from people who are not Autistic themselves??!!!

Who knows maybe one day I can add a book of my own to this list …

 

 

Podcasts

The Late Discovered Podcast

Autistic at 40

 

Books – Biographies of Autistic Adults

Strong White Female – Fern Brady

The electricity of every living thing – Katherine May

Unmasking Autism – Dr Devon Price

Spectrum Women – Edited by Barb Cook & Dr Michelle Garnett

Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder – Sarah Hendrickx

Unmasked – Ellie Middleton

Letters to my Weird Sisters – Joanne Limburg

Odd Girl Out – Laura James

Untypical – Pete Wharmby

The Autists – Clara Tornvall

Aspergirls – Ruby Simone

 

Books – A Psychoeducational of the Autistic Experience

On Being an Autistic Therapist – Edited by Max Marnau

Autistic Masking – Amy Pearson & Kieran Rose

A Mismatch of Salience – Dr Damian E Milton

What Works for Autistic Adults – Dr Luke Beardon

Avoiding Anxiety in Autistic Adults – Dr Luke Beardon

 

YouTube Accounts

@autismfromtheinside

 

Community

Wild Women Community (www.christinedoyle.ie)

AsIAm Adult Support and Wellbeing Programme (www.asiam.ie)