--- title: "Autism from an Autistic parent's perspective" episode: 18 date: 2020-10-15 guest: "Laurie Morgen" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/18-autism-from-a-parents-perspective audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-018/audio.mp3 --- # Autism from an Autistic parent's perspective Laurie Morgen joins Joanne Lockwood to talk about autism through the lens that’s often missing from public conversation: being an autistic parent. Drawing on their own family life and the stories shared with them since publishing their book, Laurie explains why “autism parent” is frequently misunderstood and why it matters to recognise autistic people as parents in their own right. The conversation unpacks common misconceptions that show up in professional settings and everyday life, including assumptions about empathy, relationships, communication, and stereotypes about skills. Laurie discusses how language and vague social conventions can create barriers, especially when professionals expect people to respond to unspoken “tick box” norms. They share personal experiences of navigating school systems, social services, and parenting spaces where indirect communication and judgment can carry real consequences. Jo and Laurie also explore how workplaces can become more accessible by focusing on the actual requirements of a role, communicating more directly, and reducing overreliance on culture-fit and social performance. Along the way, Laurie reflects on community, isolation during lockdown, and the practical strategies that support their wellbeing, grounding the episode in both lived experience and actionable learning. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Autistic community support for parenting rights. - 09:26 — Autism stereotypes hinder effective communication, individuality key. - 12:42 — Attitude towards dyslexia and autism has changed. - 17:05 — Passionate about autism and its impact. - 25:49 — Representing autistic community, dispelling myths and misconceptions. - 31:32 — Challenges getting support for high-functioning autism. - 35:18 — Give him a task, keep him happy. - 45:06 — Early autism research limited to understanding males. - 48:36 — Focus on work skills, not socialising ability. - 55:05 — Ideas grow, treasure chest, bury in garden. - 01:00:53 — Book challenges assumptions about intelligence and parenting. - 01:04:22 — Communication should be clear, inclusive, and direct. ## Key takeaways - Parenting without a diagnosis versus raising children with an understanding of one's autistic identity. - The transformative learning curve of parenting and the impact of one's upbringing on this journey. - Dissecting communication styles and preferences as a metaphor for navigating social interactions. - The dangers of generalising autistic experiences and the importance of recognising individuality. - Personal coping mechanisms during challenging times, including turning to activities like gardening. - Exploring literary contributions to the autistic narrative and the role of personal experiences in challenging misconceptions. - The call for clarity and directness in language, and its impact on inclusivity and creating a society responsive to everyone's needs. ## FAQs ### What challenges do autistic parents face in raising their children? Laurie Morgan discusses a range of challenges including social interaction difficulties, particularly with other women, and the direct communication style they prefer. Laurie also mentions how their personal experiences and upbringing have shaped their approach to parenting. ### Can you provide an analogy that Laurie Morgan uses to describe conversation styles? Laurie compares different conversation styles to travelling on a motorway versus a country lane. They express a preference for direct, motorway-like communication over the more winding, indirect style of a country lane conversation. ### Are autistic individuals all the same in their behaviours and needs? Both Joanne and Laurie underline the importance of avoiding generalisations about autistic people. They emphasise individuality and the unique experiences and needs of each person on the autism spectrum. ### What positive experiences did Laurie Morgan have during the lockdown? While Laurie missed some significant events during lockdown, they also welcomed a new grandchild and had work opportunities. They turned to gardening as a means of managing anxiety and even created a treasure hunt for their grandchildren. ### How does Laurie Morgan’s book contribute to the conversation on autism? Laurie's book, "Travelling by Train: The Journey of an Autistic Mother," raises awareness about misunderstandings in interactions, especially with authorities. It challenges stereotypes related to parenting and autism and provides a narrative from an autistic mother's perspective over twelve years. ### Why is clarity of language important, according to the podcast discussion? The conversation between Joanne and Laurie touches on the cultural and accusatory implications of certain terms, with Laurie expressing their confusion and preference for straightforward communication. Joanne agrees on the necessity of clear and inclusive language. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, That's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot UK. You'll be able to catch up with the previous shows on iTunes and Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode 18 with the title an autistic parent's perspective of autism. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Laurie Morgan. I met Lori online in a Facebook group for professional speakers, yet another networking success for COVID lockdown on online networking. Laurie describes themselves as a speaker, trainer and author. I asked Laurie to describe their superpower and they said they don't need one. So hello, Laurie. Welcome to the show. Laurie Morgan: Hello, Jo. Did I really say I didn't need a superpower? It's incredible. I get told reminded of stuff that I've said and I go like, that sounds really good. Did I actually say it? It's really good to be here today. It's fantastic. After all the problems that we've had, the issues connecting all of that stopped starting to finally sit down together with the coffee in one hand, the water in the other and the microphone right in front of us. How are you today? I'm good, Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I'm having a good week. This is even better, as you say. Finally, after much toing and froing and online diaries and trying to get this coordinated, we finally made it. So I'm really pleased that we can sit down and have our coffee together and a chat. So why do we need to understand an autistic parent's perspective of autism? Right? In Laurie Morgan: April, I had a book published called travelling by train, the journey of an autistic mother. And since it's been published, it's brought to mind something that I was already very aware of, that there isn't a lot of dialogue around about autistic people as parents. I had one or two people pick up on it, like little conversations that happen in Facebook threads. One or two people have been confused and they've made comments like, is the child autistic or is the mother autistic? And it's a both because people get confused. There's so much about I'm an autism parent, I'm an autism dad, I'm an autism mum. And what that means is that somebody is saying that I'm the parent of an autistic child. I mean, we might jokingly call them autism mamas. And it indicates more of a type of person who's kind of hanging their identity on that of their child. And there's a distinct definition. There's a big difference between being the parent of an autistic child and being the autistic parent of the child. And there's another difference being the autistic parent of an autistic child or children. So yes, I'm an autistic parent and grandparent. I have three adult children, two sons who were both diagnosed and a daughter who is not. And I had an awful lot of people approaching me through various social media channels telling me their stories and their experiences of being an autistic person and being a parent. Now we can have a lot of these chats in safe spaces talking to each other. This is autistic conversation happening about our lives, our jobs, our children, our struggles, our joys, our traumas and all this kind of thing. But that's sitting on the couch of friendship in a safe space with people we trust, with other people that we know are autistic, we know their parents and we kind of just get it. We're sitting within our own community. There does not seem to be an awful lot of dialogue about the autistic person as a parent. And it's everybody's right to be able to have their own children and to raise their own families, whether they're children by birth or their children by adoption. However we acquire our children, it's a basic human right, it's actually a basic human need. And the reason why this came about so strongly is that in the training that I deliver, I deliver autism training to various professionals. I've spoken to parent groups, I've spoken to parents of incoming students at the university I used to work at. This is all in the realm of autism world and all in the role of an autistic person. And I still hear people saying that their child has been diagnosed or however long ago they were diagnosed. And I was told my child would never. And then we get a big shopping list of things that they're never going to be able to achieve, they're never going to be able to work, they're never going to be able to live independently, they're never going to form successful relationship, they're never going to be able to learn how to drive. They're never going to be daddy, daddy, daddy, dad. All of those things that human beings expect their children to be able to do. Now I say in my training, that sets the bar of expectation very low. If we do not expect our children to achieve this, why should we bother? So they're already disadvantaged and it's a mistake that far too many professional people make. Whatever realm of professionalism that they're in is to say, no, your child is not going to achieve anything. It's signing them off before their lives even really begun. And it makes me so angry. And as a parent, yes, we should be allowed to have children. They have an awful lot, the whole parenting. It covers all sorts of other areas as well. It challenges autism myths. Apparently we get told it's a myth that we lack empathy. It's a myth that we're unable to form relationships. It's a myth that we can meet other people's needs and all this kind of thing. If professionals are being taught negative stuff about autistic people, then they come into contact with an autistic parent, with an autistic children with an autistic child or autistic children, they're going to say, well, you're not capable of raising this child. This child is the way they are because you are somehow deficient as a parent, whether that's a spoken dialogue or a written dialogue, or whether it's an underlying negative belief against that individual person. And there needs to be more dialogue about autistic people as parents. Because if we see the potential of an autistic person as a parent, there is no reason why this person cannot become a parent. If we deny them that possibility, then that puts that parent at risk. It puts them at risk of having their children removed. It puts them at risk of having unnecessary interference from authorities, from social services. Daddy, daddy, daddy, dad. And I have come across that a lot since my book was published. And there does need to be a wider dialogue of the autistic person as a parent. Joanne Lockwood: That's fascinating because I think I've been subjected to that stereotypical view of an autistic person because I work a lot with recruiters recruitment process, and there's this push on autism awareness. And the common thing that comes out is that autistic people, as you say, don't have empathy or they are not able to speak in any kind of metaphors or vague terms. If you say, how are you feeling? That's not a good question. That's why I've been told that's not a good question to ask an autistic person, or if you say to somebody, tell me about your life, that's, again, a bad question for an autistic person, because it needs to be very specific about what I'm trying to do. This is how I've been taught to communicate effectively with autistic people. And what you're saying is, as I've heard of other people say, is if you meet one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. Every autistic person is different. Everyone has a different layer of need in the same that I'm an individual, you're an individual, the world are individuals. We all have to have this person centric view of who we are, don't we? And I found it very fascinating that because I'm 56 years old, only 56. And when I was young, we didn't have autistic people. We did, but we didn't call them autistic, we didn't have people with Asperger's, we had all these. We had difficult children, we had children who were unteachable, we had the bottom of the class corner where children were effectively written off. And it's only really been in the last, what, 1520 years, where we've started to understand about different learning styles, different communication styles. And some of those children who probably in my day were written off, simply had either a learning disability or were autistic or had adhd, had attention deficits and they received no help, whereas at least children today are getting their help. So is it because the older generation see autism as a young person thing, not an old person thing? Which is why you probably don't get the support or understanding that you're looking for. Laurie Morgan: It's a difficult one, isn't it? Because while progress has been made, there's still an awful long way to go. I'm a little bit older than you, but we were brought up in the same kind of, like, era. I'm 59, so I related to what you said about we didn't have autistic children in the classroom. We did, but we didn't know they were autistic. I didn't get diagnosed till I was 44 and it was massively life changing. I was doing some background research on behalf of my youngest son who had to move schools. I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent with that, but it was after doing some research that I recognised on behalf of him that I recognised the traits in me. So, yeah, it was massively, massively life changing, but there's still an awful long way to go. A lot of differences have been noted for a long while because as you were talking, I remembered different things. And you've got to remember that this is language that was used in the 1960s, 1970s, because children, for instance, with other differences like dyslexia, they were recognised. They were recognised as dyslexic. But to use words that were common at the time, please hear that. I've said that they were seen as a little bit backward or a bit slow or somehow deficient, but thankfully this had been a hell of a lot of progress on that. So being dyslexic now does not have the same tag attached to it as being dyslexic did 50 years ago. So maybe in another 30 or 40 years time, and hopefully it isn't going to be that long, that autism will be see in another more positive light because you said something that we hear an awful lot. I can hardly ever talk about autism to somebody new who does not quote, if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. It's one of the most common things that gets grown up about. And we would not say that in any other context. We would not say, if you have met one Hindu, you have met one Hindu. If you have met one black person, you have met one black person. If you have met one woman, you have met one woman. If you have met one man, you have met one man. We just don't hear it in any other context apart from autism. Why is it only in the realm of autism that we hear that? And when on the other hand, the same people will say, they will follow it up the subtitle to if you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism. The subtitle then goes into we're all individual, we're all different. And that's usually said in that kind of special voice that we usually reserve to somebody looking at a basket of kittens. If you've met person, you met one autistic person. We're all individual, we're all unique in our own special way. What a cute basket of kittens. And in some context, and too many contexts that happen, and when you're on the receiving end of that and it's a professional, do you know that is like the garage doors slamming. Oh, by the way, autistic people don't use metaphor, so just ignore the fact that I said it's like a garage door slamming because I clearly don't know what that metaphor might conjure up with anybody. Joanne Lockwood: Maybe you're not autistic enough, then. Do you have that problem as well? Laurie Morgan: No, I might only be a little bit autistic. No. Hang on a second. Hang on a second. But aren't we all a little bit autistic? Aren't we all on the spectrum somewhere? And that leads into that one, doesn't it? Actually, no. And this is something that I bring up in my, I do this Mythbuster quiz, and this mythbuster quiz is compiled over questions that autistic people want to ask or points they want to raise. And lack of empathy is one of them. That's the top. Well, you can hear they all pop out going. You can almost see people popping on social media going like, tell them about the lack of empathy. Tell them about the lack of empathy. That is our number one. Drives us nuts. It's absolutely crazy. And the other one is, we've autistic. We are not people with autism. And it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And we are so passionate about this stuff, whether not everybody can hop up and down in a chair and wave their arms about the way I do, the way that I am, but this kind of thing matters. No. When I bring up the stuff about everybody being a little bit autistic and everybody being on the spectrum somewhere. The first time I heard that, I was delivering a workshop to 95 children's care workers, and that came up and I asked the question, so who thinks everybody's a little bit autistic? And this is the question I put to 95 children's care workers. Nearly every hand went up. Probably about 90 hands went up and that I had that feeling. I could feel my face went cold. I could barely breathe for that moment, I was utterly speechless. The horror that just filled me was incredible. I thought, are you really being taught this? And just somewhere, somewhere out of goodness knows where, I heard my voice. I heard this voice from inside me saying, keep your hands raised. So which little bit of autistic are you? If you can tell me, please keep your hand raised. Not one hand stayed raised because it's one of those things that people are taught and they take on board without actually questioning it. And there's only ever been one person who's argued with me in a training session, and she was a consultant psychiatrist. Now, that's nothing to do with, if you've met one consultant psychiatrist, you've met one consultant psychiatrist. Now, I've met a lot, and most of them are absolutely brilliant, but this particular individual wanted to argue with me. So sometimes we just have to draw a line under it and say, okay, fine, but until you can tell me which little bit of autistic you actually are, because you haven't answered my question, then are we going to have to leave it there and move on? And then I move on really quickly. And moving on really quickly was an art I learned when I was a taxi driver. That's another story. Seriously. This is one of my funny little anecdotes. Joanne Lockwood: This is like getting stuck into a Monty python sketch without realising it. This is absolutely fantastic. Shall I Laurie Morgan: tell you how I learned to move on really quickly? I did spend a period of time, about three or four years, being a taxi driver. And the reason I got to being a taxi driver was because out of an unfortunate circumstance, it was a really horribly, terribly stressful and tragic point in my life. And I'm actually making it sound like a joke, and it wasn't. I was subject to child care proceedings. And my two older children hadn't lived with me from before his birth. They were his half siblings. And he had an injury, a non accidental injury, and I couldn't prove that I hadn't done it. And he was in foster care and I used to see him. Sorry, I've got a dog running around underneath. He was in foster care and I used to see him on Monday and Tuesday and Thursday and Friday. So I needed a job that was during the nighttime or at weekends. And I got a job as a taxi driver. And I thought, social services are going to think, this is really great, dead positive, all that kind of thing. But no, they said I was putting myself at risk. Now, had I have got a job during the day, they would have said, she's putting career before child. So it's not like I couldn't win. It was just completely dreadful. But I got a job as a taxi driver and seriously, and I talk about it in my book, and it saved my sanity. I did two really positive things in that awful time. And one was get the job as a taxi driver and the other one was to start dancing. And I used to find out that I got asked out an awful lot to start off with. Nearly every shift I did, I was getting asked out like four or five times a week. I'd get asked out on dates and I kind of started to get a little bit annoying. I wasn't interested in relationships at the time. I wanted to focus on what really mattered. And relationships weren't one of them. And I figured out that people ask this question, people. It was usually blokes. And the quite common question went along the lines of, doesn't your husband mind you doing this? Or doesn't your boyfriend mind you doing this? And I used to say, well, I'm sort of like, haven't got a husband or, no, I'm not in a relationship. And then I'd get asked out. And that's when I realised that they weren't really asking whether my husband minded or my boyfriend minded. They were really asking, are you single now? I was answering the question that they asked and not the question that they meant. And this is a completely autism thing. You ask me the question, you ask me if I want a cup of coffee, I'll say yes or no. If you're asking me if I want a cup of coffee because you think it means you're inviting me in your house for a fumble on the sofa to Matt Monroe songs or thing, then it's not going, you asked me for a coffee. You didn't say, know, take your clothes off, lord, or anything like that. And I realised that that was what the question meant. So I learned to move on really quickly and say, like, well, actually, I don't have one. And then I change the subject quick. And the invitations to quiet nights in just dried up, which is quite a relief. So that's how I learned to move on from an awkward question. And it does work well in a professional setting. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I think you're right. When we're training, when we're standing in front of people, it's quite easy to get sucked into a black hole if you're not careful. Yes. Someone's going to have a question or they'll have a perspective and you get dragged into. As you say, it's very important to be able to have an escape route out of a conversation, isn't it? Laurie Morgan: Yes, it is. It's being able to look at that distraction over their shoulder and that nice shiny ball or that lovely view or something like that, and then move on to something else. But we need to move on now. We're really short of time. So x, Y and z, you're welcome to speak to me afterwards. So you're also Joanne Lockwood: going to destroy the myth that you're not a mathematical genius, then? Is that another myth that you try and bust? Laurie Morgan: Yes, that's on the quiz sheet as well. We're not all good at maths. It's actually really common. Some people are really genius with numbers and some aren't. I'm not great. It was one of those pain areas when I was growing up, because my dad was a genius, literally, and he was literally a mathematical genius and I wasn't. I've got dyscalculia, which is the numerical equivalent of dyslexia, and I've got no capacity to retain numbers or information and stuff like that and working out calculations, and it does affect a bigger area of your life, apparently, it affects your ability to organise yourself, et cetera, et cetera as well. It's not just the numbers, it's the other things. But I'm not great with numbers and it's not just me, because when I stand in a training room or in front of an audience, I know that I'm representing the autistic community and I say, yes, I'm an individual, very unique, but I'm not unique, because if I say I'm really dreadfully poor at something, I know I'm not going to be the only one, because I know I belong to a community where there will be other people who experience the exact same kind of difficulty as well. So I feel that I can honour the autistic community by speaking, by being a mouthpiece for us, because I need to put us across in a positive light. If I stand in front of an audience and I seem articulate and I seem capable, that's busting a myth as soon as I walk in the room, the fact that I open my mouth and I can string a sentence together when people have only really come into contact with autistic people in the context of learning disability, that's something else that people confuse as well. Autism is not a learning disability, and I think a higher proportion of us don't have learning disabilities than actually do have. I think the printed statistics, about 48% of autistic people have a learning disability. But I actually challenge that because there are going to be undiagnosed people out there who meet the criteria for genius, or average or above average, who they've never had their autism diagnosed and they clearly don't fall into learning disabled, and they won't appear in statistics any more than they'll appear in statistics of employment figures, for instance, or school exclusion figures, anything like that. If you're not diagnosed, then you're not going to appear in statistics. It well, then look at autism. Joanne Lockwood: People hear these terms, hear the word autism or autistic, they hear of Asperger's. Are these linked or separate? I mean, there are different conditions or different ways people exhibit autism to certain degrees or strengths. Is that right? Is Asperger's similar to autism? Laurie Morgan: Actually, I really am so thanks loads. Very much appreciated. I'm currently waiting to hear about the tribunal for my personal independence payment, which I got turned down for. They decided that I had to go from DLA to Pip and I hadn't got assessed. And like most people, you get turned down and they hope you're going to go away and leave it, but you appeal. I'm going through the process. And in my PIP interview, I had this argument with the assessor because she said, it says, here you have autism and Asperger's. And I just. No, it's the same. It's the same. Asperger's and autism are used interchangeably. Asperger's is a form of autism. It's not used so much now. I tend to just use autism. And even on the letter I got from the court, it said, I got autism and Asperger's. You don't have both. It's one. It's just one condition. They tend not to diagnose Asperger's now because it comes under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorder or autism spectrum condition, and there's no difference, because if you look at that, you start looking at functioning labels all over again. They used to say Asperger's is a high functioning form of autism, Asperger's is a mild form of autism, but they're still saying form of. It's still the same thing. And it's confusing because one of those things that happens is when we're looking at functioning labels, is that severe autism, high functioning, low functioning, severe, mild, all this thing to meet the diagnostic criteria, you go through all of the things that you have difficulties in all the areas that are problematic. So basically, you have to fit all of this negative criteria to get your diagnosis. Now, when you go and look for support, they're not interested in what you can't do, they're interested in what you can do. So to fulfil the diagnostic criteria, it might be, look, I'm absolutely unsafe to live on my own, for instance, and then to get support and help, and they'll say, yes, but you live on your own. And then they'll see that as it's completely skewed, it's completely wrong, it's to look for support. They'll dismiss you as needing support because of everything that you can do. Now, let's just say at my end, when you're autistic and you don't have a learning disability or what people might call high functioning or whatever, and it's all arguable and it's terrible and it's offensive to autistic people. So if you're classed as severely autistic, then what happens is that they don't actually look at the things that you're capable of achieving and they set the bar of achievement incredibly low. So you're disadvantaged by the functioning labels that we see, especially when it comes down to living your life like being a parent, being employed, living independently or getting support, just being seen as a regular human being. Joanne Lockwood: You've been autistic all your life, so you can't know what it's like not to be autistic or not to be you. But can you imagine some of the additional challenges you've had as a parent with children? Obviously, to be a parent you have to have children, but to be a parent of both autistic children and non autistic children that you've had to cope with that maybe other parents don't. Laurie Morgan: My daughter isn't diagnosed and she doesn't want to go for an assessment. So in theory, I don't know whether I've got a child who isn't autistic. So I've got a bit of a question mark over that one. I think, generally speaking, yeah, we kind of think that she is, but that's fine. I've never parented any other children apart from mine either, so it's a kind of tricky one. I do know that with my eldest son, I hadn't got very much of an idea, like, what the hell am I doing here? I've got this small baby, okay, what do I do with this? It's like getting that really useful Christmas present. And you look at it, you look across at the person who's giving it you and they're just literally bursting with excitement. They're not literally, let's say metaphorically bursting with excitement. And they're looking at you going like, isn't this the best present you ever had? And you look down at it and go like, what am I supposed to do with this? And that was what it was like having a new baby. So I just kind of grew with him and I tuned into him. I knew what worked. I knew this behaviour meant one thing and that behaviour meant something else. You knew that if he started to get raggy and irritable, he was probably hungry. He wouldn't come and say, mummy, I'm hungry. You know, by his behaviour, he was hungry. You learn these things over a period of time. He's kind of like in the way he's under your feet an awful lot. Just give him something to do and he's happy. He didn't necessarily want me to play with him. He just wanted giving a job to do. So you'd set him up with a task. Get all the sticky box, stick all the boxes, the glue out, the paint out and give him some cardboard box modelling to make. He'd be happy, or you're making bread, just wrap a tea towel round his tummy, wash his hands, stand him on a chair, put him at the dining table with a lump of dough, show him how to do it, leave him with it, happy as you like. And you just got to know. So that was my experience of having his child and we had a few issues when he started school. He was one of those kids who crawled. He crawled around on the floor, under the table, he'd roll around on the cloak room floor, this kind of thing. And he displayed the sort of behaviour that he displayed at home and I knew how to deal with it. But I didn't go particularly down well, particularly at school. I got called into the headmistress's office an awful lot. And I'd say, well, I've always done an awful lot with him because when this happens, I do that, it's cause and effect. He does this, I do that, everybody's happy. And she said to me, perhaps you've done too much with him, but if I ignore him, he's just an absolute pest. So that was how I related to my child. I did not have a good example. My parents were both dreadful. I was abused an awful lot, emotionally and verbally, occasionally physically. I was hit. My mom would lose a temper and she'd just launch into me and thump me in the head and that kind of thing. So I didn't really have an awful lot to follow. I just learned from my children and that was my experience of parenting from that particular angle. And now I've got different experiences over the years and I haven't stopped being a parent. My youngest one was nearly 27 and still learning new things because his life experience changes. So stuff crops up when they're adult that isn't going to crop up when they're five, for instance. The things that I found difficult were things like playground conversations with other parents, going to play groups and stuff like that, or toddler groups where you're mixing and meeting other parents. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to have conversations, didn't know how to chat. I felt awkward. Sometimes I couldn't speak, I'd stammer an awful lot because I couldn't get my words out, which is sort of thing that generally happens when I'm feeling incredibly awkward and in a situation that's difficult for me. And I didn't really ever make lots of friends because I didn't really know how to. Joanne Lockwood: When we were chatting earlier, you were talking about motorways and country lanes, which I thought was a beautiful analogy. And as you've got older, you've kind of also questioned your own sense of self, your identity, your gender, et cetera, et cetera. And as you've evolved your own sort of identity, you've become less able to cope with overload, haven't you? I think that's what you were saying. You get too much information sometimes. Laurie Morgan: I don't know, about being less able. It's more aware that somebody's not tolerating it. It's not necessarily coping. I think as my self awareness has grow, I'm less inclined to tolerate what I call country lane talking. And, yes, we were talking earlier about some of the issues that I have, and quite often I have difficulty relating to women because I know it's a generalisation. It is very much a generalisation. So if any women are listening and they're being offended and they're saying, yes, but I'm not like that. Well, I'm acknowledging that because you've met woman. One woman, you've met one woman. You'Ve met one woman. It doesn't mean to say you know them all, but this is a common experience that I found, and, yes, I am generally generalising an awful lot, is that women tend to give you far more information than you need it. They'll waffle, they'll say 25 words where one will do, and it's hard to keep up, it's hard to follow, it's hard to know, what are you actually asking? What information are you actually giving me? And it's sometimes like people talk a lot and communicate absolutely nothing. There's one female lecturer, when I was at diversity, I just couldn't bear going to her lectures. I took literally what the course leaders said in the intro before we started uni, and I didn't go to uni till I was 44, so I was already theoretically grown up. But I can remember sitting in the street. I was going to be meeting my mentor. I remember sitting in a public street in Sheffield, outside the library, and it was by the side of one of the dual carriageways that runs through the middle of Sheffield. And I just sat there in the side of the street with my back against the library ball crying. And it's the prospect of going into this woman's lecture because she just talked talk. I've got no idea what she's trying to say. And that's an extreme example of something that I find really common. And it's what I call country lane conversation because it goes all over the place and it takes ages to get to where you're going now. That's very common in people who aren't autistic. Autistic people tend to be more motorway thinkers and motorway talkers. So you don't get the waffle. You get very direct answers, you get very direct instructions and it's so easy to follow. Occasionally you might stop at the services because you need a bit of a break. But generally speaking, it's a far more efficient way of communicating information and it's a metaphor that autistic people aren't supposed to know very much about. We're going to keep coming back to this because it's just poking a bit. It's just poking a bit of fun at stuff, but in a light hearted way. I hope anybody listening is actually getting a bit of a message there. Yeah, that Joanne Lockwood: autistic people. You've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. I learned that's a really crass thing to say. Yeah, but Laurie Morgan: you're saying it more than I am. I know it's a Joanne Lockwood: crass thing to say. Couldn't we, to put all. I know, Christmas Laurie Morgan: cracker instead of a joke, is it sort of a Christmas cracker autism myth and one of them could it? Yeah. I think many of the autistic Joanne Lockwood: people who train on autism use that phrase a lot and I think training it is. Yeah. I can't speak for every autistic trainer or every trainer who teaches autism, but I often hear that from people and I hear that about people with disabilities and other characteristics. So I think it's a Muggle's way of describing people who are a Muggle was assumed that they're normal and everybody else isn't. When you talk about people with different gender identities, different abilities, disabilities, we like to box people in, don't we? We like to create this sort of, like, stereotypical view of somebody so that we can put them in a box. We can say, well, autistic people are like this, trans people like this, disabled people like this, people who are deaf are like this, and we like to have these little boxes. It makes it much easier to deal with people, doesn't it? And I think what we're doing with autism is doing that. We're creating these boxes so we can put people in, so we can label people and say, right, that's an autistic person. We're going to treat them like a mathematician. They're not going to have any empathy, they're not going to want to communicate. If you ask them a question, it's going to be very direct and they're going to give you direct answers back and avoid eye contact. And that's kind of the rules. It's a bit like having a gremlin, isn't it? You can't feed it after ten, you can't get it wet, and you can't give it bright light wherever the other things is. So we learn about people in these big stereotypes. And I think what we're discovering here is that we can't be stereotyping people with autism because autistic people, because there is no typical person in the same way there's no typical other person. Laurie Morgan: Well, I think if you go back through the history of the study of autism, and I don't know whether you've come across the book called neurotribes by Steve Silberman, it's quite heartbreaking reading the earlier chapters, and lights don't start to come on till quite a way into the book, so it's really heartbreaking. But looking back at the original people who were studying autism, they weren't even trained psychologists. It's absolutely. They set themselves up as. And they studied stuff and they brought papers out that an awful lot of understanding was subsequently developed on. And they only looked at boys, they only studied boys. So for a very long while, and it's still the case today, it's much harder to diagnose girls or women because so much of the information that's out there is based around the study of males, or typically presenting males, and it's very difficult. And the thing is that if you look at it from an autistic perspective, if the children in the study are not showing any empathy from an autistic perspective, it might be because they don't understand what they're supposed to be doing in that particular task. They're too frightened to show any emotion whatsoever. Because one of the myths is that we don't show emotions. If you're frightened, it's difficult to show any emotion. If you're frightened, it's difficult to take on board any information. And children were being studied in laboratories under artificial circumstances. Now, if you're the type of person who finds those sort of conditions incredibly difficult to operate under or think inside, then you are going to present in a way that isn't normal for you. So an awful lot of these diagnostic criteria were set up based on artificial situations. Now, if children were studied at home and studied in the natural environment, if they were watched while they were in the playground or at the park, or in the classroom, or in the home, or in the supermarket or walking to the supermarket, you'd see a completely different picture. You'd see a completely different picture if you saw the way the child interacted with their family pets, with their siblings, with their parents, in an environment that's actually the one they're used to living in. And this is where a lot of this absolute rubbish starts from, and the things that we impose on people as well. Joanne Lockwood: So what can we do in the workplace or even in society to change the cultural perception of autistic people? What can we learn? What can I learn from today? We can be more motorway, Laurie Morgan: what job do you want doing? This person can do this job, so let them do the job. That is just cutting out a hell of a load of rubbish. You're not employing somebody to make friends, you're not employing somebody who looks like they might be a laugh on a night out, you're not employing somebody who's great to have a water cooler conversation with. You are employing person a to do job a. Person B to do job b. Why do social skills matter very much in any job where it might not necessarily be relevant? In fact, how relevant is it in an awful lot of jobs? If you're saying a social worker visiting a family, you've got questions to ask. Ask the questions. Ask the question that you want the answer to, not the question, and the person gives you the wrong answer because they didn't guess the right answer. We can all learn to be a bit more direct. Some of that is actually part of british culture, and I've learned that by mixing and meeting with people from other cultures. Some cultures are very much more direct. No, if they think you're fat, they're going to say, man, you look fat. And that's the way that culture operates. And that is quite a culture that you can relate to from an autistic perspective, because you think that person needs to shed some pounds. But it's not necessarily the comment that british people would make, but it's perfectly acceptable. Let's be direct with people. Let's say it's the whole that social interaction thing is a nightmare, because some things we don't say some things we do say, like, I was just saying what I was thinking. Well, sometimes it's not relevant. It doesn't matter. All you need to know, person a needs to do job a. Nothing else particularly matters. It doesn't matter how old they are, it doesn't matter what colour they are, doesn't matter what size they are, it doesn't matter whether they prefer if they're boys who like to sleep with boys or girls who like to sleep with girls or they like to sleep with both or. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how many children they've got, doesn't matter whether they're married or not. No. You need person a to do Job a. There is too much in the workplace is where you're taking on a person who fits in with company culture, and a lot of that's based on ageing, appearance. We were all in a young, dynamic team. You need a young tip. Focus on Joanne Lockwood: the task in hand and less about the social interactions. It's kind of the autistic view of efficiency, if you like. Yeah. What job do you want doing? Show me. Sometimes when I'm concentrating, that's exactly what I need. I need just head down, let me get on with it. Tell me what you need. Let me do it. And as you say, I think there's a lot of country link conversations where you end up over talking about something, where you end up explaining it too much detail. And sometimes it's nice to say, okay, tell me what. Where are we going with this? Where we going? Tell me what you're after. Let's get on with it. So I completely relate to that. Cash into the chase, I think we call it the chase. We can flower things up, can't we often think how much money we could. Save if we weren't having meetings? Laurie Morgan: About having meetings, if we knew. Have you found strengths? Were, have you found Joanne Lockwood: lockdown? We got a person who's absolutely brilliant at this. Laurie Morgan: Let them get on with it. Management. Yeah. So have you found lockdown, Joanne Lockwood: then? So presumably, like the rest of the country, you're often now working from home and spending more time at home. Is that more of a challenge for you, or do you find that more relaxing because you're not dealing with people's country lanes at the moment? Country lanes and motorways that. Laurie Morgan: I've been forced to be more isolated, in a way. I've had a lot of personal circumstances going on. How have I found lockdown? You've got highs, there are highs, there are lows. I got a one. She's 16 month old granddaughter missed her first birthday, missed the opportunity of seeing her in real life because of lockdown. My youngest son's partner had a baby during lockdown, and that was a high point. I've had a few inquiries about paid work, which freelance work, which is positive, but I've had all this stuff that had to be postponed or put on hold, which has been difficult. I got to a point of month six weeks ago where I was realising that I was getting a lot of anxiety, et cetera, et cetera, and I decided that I needed to do something about it. So I started garden projects. Now, I'm not one for gardening, I'm not one for housework. I just often find it difficult to know where to start. So with the garden, I started digging. I started chopping back a lot of stuff that had overgrown and started digging. And when I started digging, I saw the next job coming along. Although if I clear this enough, with my birthday approaching, which is the beginning of July, I can make this area big enough to pitch a tent in so that my two older grandchildren can come over on my birthday and we can camp in the garden and have a barbecue and all this sort of thing. And the idea started to grow. And this is how ideas things develop with me. And sometimes it is the runaway train and I end up taking on more than I can deal with. I was borrowing next door's garden waste bin because theirs is paved over just to put garden rubbish in. And I went around one day to see if I could borrow it and they got this treasure chest, cardboard box, treasure chest in the garden on the front step with a postit note said, okay, can I have that yet? So of course I got hold of that. I'm going to fill it with stuff like chocolate money and various bits of shiny, sparkly, piratey looking stuff and bury it in the garden. So that means I had to dig a big hole to bury it in the garden, which is fine because I don't have any lawn at the moment. I can dig up as much as I like. I can dig a World War I trench if I want to. It's absolutely fine. So I had this crazy idea of burying this treasure chest and of course, bury the treasure chest. I had to make a sort of, like, clues so the children could run around the house from one clue to the next till they got to x marks a spot. Now I got a literal x marks a spot because my little grandson, who's six, he likes looking at maps and he was looking at a map one time and he was looking for something that he called x marks the spot. Well, let's have a real life x marks the spot. So I crossed two twigs over, covered it with a map, laid these clues out. I uncovered the map, found x marks a spot, and I stood there looking at it for a moment and Olivia said to Mickey, I think we're supposed to dig. So we got soil flying everywhere. It was just an absolute total mess. By the end of the weekend, I think I could have grown potatoes on my dining room floor, there was that much soil everywhere. But they had a great time and they have lots of fun when they come over. And I think that's because I get down on their level and I see life through their eyes and I think they're going to love this. Is that showing empathy, looking at it through their eyes, thinking, they're going to love this, they're going to love the treasure chest, they're going to love the camping in the garden, and it's about designing things around what they are going to absolutely love. And they enjoy coming over so much. So that was a lockdown project and it takes ages. It took hours to dig that hole and 30 seconds to dig the treasure chest up. But it didn't matter. It's helping to keep me mentally well and healthy and that matters. The children are having fun while I'm looking after my mental health. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I agree completely. Well, you've written your book. Just remind the listeners about your book again. So this book you've written, what is it about? It's called travelling by train, Laurie Morgan: the journey of an autistic mother. It's by me, Lauren Morgan, and that's spelled L-A-U-R-I-E-M-O-R-G-E-N. It's published by Panama Press, it's available on Amazon and other outlets through Blackwells, through Warstones, directly through me. I'm guessing that you may well put my contact details somewhere on your. I will do, yeah. So this book will be Joanne Lockwood: useful for parents who in the cells are autistic or people who want to find out more about autism or is it a life biography? Right. It's Laurie Morgan: a fabulous question and well worth asking. It's not a book. It's not a book about friends, it's not a book about autism, it's not a book about parenting. It is a personal story that's written from an autistic perspective. Through most of the book, it covers a twelve year period. Some of the time in it I go into more detail than others, so it slows down in pace, it picks up in pace and it raises questions that need to be raised. Did find myself in circumstances that I didn't understand and I was responding to the situation in ways that weren't expected, and that went against me and I responded in ways that weren't expected because there's a prescription, especially when you're coming into contact with authorities like the social services, and they're expecting an invisible tick box to be ticked, and if you're not ticking the tick box, it's wrong. And I wasn't responding in ways that they would have expected. So that went against me. Now, the reason I didn't respond in ways they would have expected is because I took a lot of what they said quite literally. They didn't understand why an intelligent, articulate person didn't understand what was happening. And that's because a lot of it hadn't been specifically and explicitly laid out to me. I'll give you an example that happens early on in the book I was told that my son had sustained a non accidental injury. And the first thought that went through my head was if he was in hospital at the time, oh, he hasn't had an accident, so he must be ill. He'll get better. I can take him home. I had no idea that non accidental meant deliberate, and it took me a long while to realise that. And one of the reasons of that was because I was autistic and another one was because I'd never been in a situation like that before. Now, it would also be a confusing thing to say to somebody if English isn't their first language or if somebody might have a mild learning disability. And that's where certain types of people, certain cultures, are actually disadvantaged. And this is why this book raises important questions. We should not make the assumption that because somebody appears to be intelligent, they appear to be articulate, or because they're doing parenting in a way that seems unusual, that there's somehow something wrong with that. And this goes right back to the beginning of our conversation that we were talking about this when we were talking about parenting and stuff like that, is that not everybody takes the same approach. You do get cultural differences in parenting, and because it's different doesn't mean that it's harmful, it doesn't mean that it's abusive. And this is what came out in contact that I had after my book was published, from people saying that they've had these difficulties. They've had those difficulties simply because they're doing perfectly brilliant job in a way that's slightly different, that falls outside, that tick box type of approach. I completely get what you're saying Joanne Lockwood: there. When someone says non accidental, what they really mean is a deliberate injury. Why don't they say deliberate? But I guess the UK culture, the english culture, or the NHS culture at the moment is trying to be accusatory. So if someone says someone's deliberately harmed this child, that sounds much more accusatory than a non accidental injury. So I can see why the language. I Laurie Morgan: said to, I can remember saying at one part, well, why didn't you just say it was a deliberate. Why did you say it was a non accidental injury? Because to me, a non accident was like a non event. I've said this to other people before, lots of times. I say it in my book, I've said it in other podcasts. It was like a non accident was the same to me, in my head as a non event. He was ill, he'd get better, he'd go home. I was not expecting all the rest of it. One, because it had never happened to me before. It had never happened to anybody. I knew it was completely outside of anything I'd experienced. I couldn't understand why anybody would even think that I'd want to hurt my baby. This was my third child. I had a ten year old, I had a five year old, and I had a very small baby. Why would anybody even think that? I've said this frequently. I don't know. Why would you even think I'd want to do that? Joanne Lockwood: No, I completely get that. And I think one thing we can all take away from this is thinking about the language we use. Are we making language more confusing by trying to package it up? It is country lane driving, as you're saying, putting too much depth into it, rather than just saying it like it is. I completely understand that. Sometimes when we're trying to get a message across, we need to be maybe clearer, and that is more inclusive for all people, not just people with autism or autistic people. It's also people who maybe, just maybe from different cultures, they want to be told straight rather than have it flowered up and lots of metaphors and descriptions there, but I completely get that. Well, thank you for your time today. It's been really interesting, and I know I've been laughing and chuckling a lot in the background here, as you've been talking. It's been some serious points as well. I've learned a lot, and certainly the way I've been talking about autistic people, I'm going to change the stereotypes and make sure I do some more research now, and it's been really fascinating to listen to you about your life and your experiences as an autistic parent. So I'm sure our listeners will have much to ponder and take inspiration from as well. So presumably our listeners can get in touch with you on LinkedIn or through your website, which I think is Lauriemorgan Co. UK. That's Lauriemorgen Co. UK and find you on LinkedIn as well as Lauriemorgan. Laurie Morgan: As soon as you spell my surname right, you're in know because it's quite unusual. Google will want to suggest alternative spellings, but ignore them, stick with it and. Go for the right spelling and Joanne Lockwood: they'll find you. Yeah, there's one of you. You know how to spell your Laurie Laurie Morgan: Morgan, you've met one? Joanne Lockwood: We sure have. Well, a huge thank you to the listeners who've tuned in and listening to this right now. Please do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and months. Remember, if you'd like to be a guest on the show, please let me know. I'd also welcome any feedback suggestions for future shows how we can improve. To jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to be your host for this podcast today. Catch you next time. Bye.