Wednesday Webinars Series - 27.01.27 - 24.03.27

Personal Care: Supporting Dignity, Safety, and Autonomy Some autistic children and young people experience heightened anxiety around personal care activities such as hair washing, showering, or teeth brushing. This anxiety often arises from sensory sensitivities, uncertainty about what will happen, difficulties with motor planning or sequencing, or past experiences of distress. Reluctance to engage in personal care is not refusal or non-compliance, it is communication. Personal care activities should be approached in ways that maximise autonomy, informed participation, and consent wherever possible. This training explores common personal care tasks, including: Hair washing Showering or bathing Teeth brushing Participants will explore: Factors that contribute to anxiety around personal care. How sensory, cognitive, and emotional needs intersect during self-care tasks. Accommodations and supportive strategies that prioritise predictability, consent, dignity, and autonomy. Personal care support is done with the child, not to the child, and that emotional safety is prioritised alongside physical care.

Autism and Managing Worries Autistic children and young people are more likely to experience anxiety than their non-autistic peers. This heightened anxiety is not a flaw in the child, but a natural response to environments that are often unpredictable, sensory intense, socially complex, or misaligned with autistic ways of processing and communicating. Autistic anxiety may also be experienced more frequently or more intensely. Within a neuroaffirming framework, anxiety is understood as information, a signal from the nervous system that something feels unsafe, overwhelming, or uncertain. Managing worries is not about eliminating anxiety or teaching children to tolerate distress. It is about recognising triggers, supporting emotional expression, and adapting environments and expectations so that autistic children experience safety, predictability, and belonging. Supportive approaches may include structured routines, visual supports, and gentle regulation strategies. Tools such as worry time or worry containers, worry jars or worry notebooks, can be helpful when used flexibly and respectfully, ensuring that children are never pressured to express worries in ways that feel unsafe or unnatural. This training will: Build understanding of common worries experienced by autistic children and young people. Explore respectful ways to support children to communicate and express worries using speech, visuals, AAC, actions, behaviour, body language, or alternative methods Develop understanding of concepts such as worry time and worry jars as optional, supportive tools rather than required tasks. Encourage approaches that help children release or hold worries in ways that preserve dignity, agency, and emotional safety.

An Introduction to Gestalt Language Processing: Honouring Natural Pathways of Language Development Gestalt language processing is one of two natural and valid ways people develop language. In contrast to analytical language development, which builds language word by word, gestalt language processors acquire language in whole "chunks" or meaningful phrases. These chunks, often referred to as echolalia, are not meaningless repetition. They are a deeply meaningful and essential part of language development for gestalt language processors. Current research and lived experience consistently show that many, if not most, autistic children are gestalt language processors. This includes both speaking and non-speaking children. Within a neuroaffirming framework, echolalia is respected as communication, not extinguished or reshaped prematurely. This webinar will explore: Analytical versus gestalt language development. Autistic language development across spoken, minimally speaking, and non-speaking children. Supportive, respectful practices that honour gestalt language development. Considerations for AAC that align with natural language processing styles. Autistic children do not need to change how they process language in order to belong. Our role is to listen differently.