One of my passions is my work with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism (HFA). In the workshops we provide a number of tools that can be used by the 'Aspie' in order to experience more success in the various areas of their lives. The areas addressed in the workshops are self-advocacy, friendship, employment, stress management and dating and relationships.
One of the first tools we teach is an 'explain' script for the purpose of self-advocacy. The script starts with the words "I'm the type of person who ..."
On Thursday evening last week I attended the Asperger's support group meeting and along with another of the workshop co-facilitators we spoke to the 'explain' script and situations where it can be used to provide an explanation of an individuals' needs or idiosyncrasies to another person in a positive way. The other person receiving the information in this format is often more willing to understand and make provision for the Aspie's unique characteristics.
The information was quite well received and there was definite interest in future workshops, especially in the area of relationships.
The next day, I was telling a visiting friend about the previous evening's meeting and as I spoke my passion for presenting this information was definitely getting the better of me. She was very kind to listen to me as I gave very detailed explanations of the tools presented and elaborated on how each workshop session built on the previous session until by the end of the workshops the participants had a well outfitted 'toolkit' to pull from.
She seemed to embrace this concept but I didn't know how well she had embraced it until after church today when she came up to me and not once, but twice began a sentence with "I'm the type of person who ..."
She gets an 'A' :)
This week I am looking forward to -
- further improvement in my mother's condition
- making progress in range of motion of my right arm, I was told at the post-op education session last week that I should be doing the exercises three times a day, not just once and this has already made quite a difference
- the orientation session at the cancer center
- my appointments with the medical oncologist and the GP specializing in oncology. I feel that these appointments will be very beneficial in helping me to understand where I am at now, what the next steps will be and what I can do to help make the next steps go as smoothly as possible with the best possible outcomes.
- booking the appointments and procedures required before I start chemo and as many as possible out of the way so we can continue our plans to get away in early August.
Take care
I couldn't make it to the Thursday meeting, just too tired & on the verge of a meltdown. But I'm thrilled to hear that you were able to make it and sharing the workshop knowledge. I haven't stopped either :) It's awesome that the knowledge is helping people.
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