Masterclass: Diagnosis for Autistic Girls & Women
Participants will learn how to conduct a diagnostic assessment for a girl or woman to determine whether they are autistic, including measurement of camouflaging, co-occurring conditions, differential diagnosis, and use of and adaptations to conventional psychometric assessment.
Participants will learn the challenges that autistic girls and women face in their daily lives and how autism can affect their friendships, relationships, sense of self, emotion regulation and career. Professionals who provide diagnostic assessment will benefit.
Masterclass: Therapy and Support for Autistic Girls & Women
Information will be provided on support and therapy to develop a positive sense of self, enhance strategies for self-advocacy, executive functioning, emotion understanding and regulation to improve friendship and relationship abilities from early childhood to the adult years, and how aspects of autism can contribute to a successful career.
Adaptations to conventional therapy will be explained to accommodate the profile of abilities and experiences of autistic girls and women in the treatment of common clinical presentations, including anxiety and depression, eating disorders, and gender dysphoria.
Emotion Management for Autistic Children and Adolescents
Autistic children and adolescents often struggle to understand and express emotions, resulting in high levels of anxiety, stress, anger and/or depression.
Conventional strategies that encourage emotion management for typical children do not seem to be as effective with autistic children. The child’s quality of life, self-esteem and well-being will be influenced by their ability to manage emotions, and difficulties with emotion management can lead to being suspended and having a notoriety that will affect the attitude of teachers and peers, as well as the attitude of the child to themselves.
Through several decades of working with autistic children and adolescents and their families and schools, Michelle and Tony have discovered, developed and evaluated emotion management strategies based on Mindfulness and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy that have proven to be effective in assisting autistic children to learn about, and manage, their emotions, from anxiety to love.
