Event summary
Date
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O'Brennan National School, Kielduff, Kerry
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Autism and Understanding Anxiety This training approaches anxiety as a contextual and relational experience, often emerging when Primary School environments place sustained demands on autistic children to adapt, mask, or function without adequate support. Rather than viewing anxiety as an internal problem within the child, the session highlights how anxiety often reflects environmental unpredictability, sensory overwhelm, communication barriers, and relational misattunement within primary school settings. Primary School Professionals will explore: How anxiety is experienced physiologically and emotionally by autistic children in early and middle childhood. The cumulative impact of masking, fatigue, transitions, and unmet needs across the school day. How anxiety frequently signals threats to felt safety, predictability, and belonging in classrooms. Practical, school based supports that reduce anxiety by changing expectations, environments, and adult responses, restoring agency, trust, and emotional security.
Location
O'Brennan National School
Ballynahinch
Kielduff
Kerry
V92 AE73
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Joan McDonald
Following many years teaching in mainstream classrooms, Joan worked on individual planning in centres for adults with learning disabilities and those with mental health struggles.
She, then, became one of the first SENOs in Ireland, observing and providing school supports for students with atypical needs across eighty rural schools.
While studying for an M.Ed. in Autism, Joan was taught by and met a variety of autistic adults, which ultimately led to her own autism assessment. Prior to meeting such a diverse range of autistic people, Joan would only have recognised autism in people with profound and complex support needs.
Joan is passionate about using students’ interests to support autistic learners of all levels of cognitive ability to access education and contented lives.
She currently works on a variety of projects with agencies such as Middletown Centre for Autism, Dublin City University, Nua Healthcare, Fingal Libraries. In recent years, creating and delivering the Posauteen and Posaudult courses to help autistic people understand and advocate for themselves has been a major focus of Joan’s time.
Event summary
Date
Start Time
End Time
O'Brennan National School , Kielduff , Kerry