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Autism work.

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Joe Thomas is a writer and website developer from the UK. He enjoys creating useful information for those who suffer from all kinds of disabilities, and also raising awareness on certain issues.

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The Benefits of Hiring People with Autism

In the UK there are more than 700,000 individuals living with autism, however, less than 15% of these people are in full-time employment. This is a dispiriting figure when you consider the many skills and talents people with autism have, skills which are highly beneficial in the workplace.

Autism Spectrum Disorder is not a disease or illness and it cannot be cured – the unique elements of autism are an integral part of the person’s make-up. As it is defined across a spectrum, people with autism will all experience it in a unique way, however, it usually has some effect on how individuals communicate and interact with others. As well, it is also important to remember that autism is not a visible disability.

In 2010, The Equality Act came into force in the UK and made it unlawful for any employer to discriminate on the grounds of disability. Perhaps this has made some employers reassess their approach to autism, however, employing people with a disability is not a matter of filling quotas. Instead, the focus should be on the value each individual can bring to the prospective role. Those who fall within the spectrum of autism have a huge amount to offer companies. Individuals with autism are often excellent problem solvers; have outstanding concentration and memory skills; pay great attention to detail; and are highly dependable, just some of the traits that companies are looking for in employees.

While every applicant who applies for a job should be treated as an individual, there is common ground amongst people with autism that can be reached, which, when recognised by companies can make the hiring process run much more smoothly.

Things to consider:

Communication

Some individuals with autism will find understanding body language and facial expressions difficult and this can sometimes hinder communication.

Repetitive Behaviours

People with autism will often see the world in a different way and thus they tend to enjoy the security of familiarity and routine. This is a positive trait in a working environment.

Interaction

Interaction concerns how individuals with autism behave in the presence of others. For example, if they are concerned, they may retreat within themselves; or they may sometimes appear insensitive, but only because they find it difficult to read cues from those around them.

The Interview Process

People with autism often develop a keen interest in a particular subject and become hugely knowledgeable about it. If you can discover what this interest is during the interview, and encourage the candidate to talk about it, it can help put them at ease.

Sometimes jokes and sarcasm are not understood well by individuals with autism, as physical cues are hard for them to read. Therefore, be straightforward and express yourself clearly. Also, if there are gaps in the conversation don’t rush in to fill the silence, the person may just need a little longer to formulate their response.

The Induction Process

Once an individual with autism has been hired, there are simple steps you can take to make their first few days with you as positive an experience as possible.

  • Send induction material to the new employee early so they can take the time to read through and absorb it before they start. This will help to lessen first day nerves.
  • If possible, try to seat the person away from noise or people passing by regularly, as this can be unsettling. It’s also important to build structure into the day so individuals know what to expect.
  • People with autism can be perfectionists so it’s important to give regular feedback on how things are going and provide reassurance where necessary.

Individuals with autism tend to have strong skills in particular areas and can often outperform their peers in these capacities. It’s important therefore to tap into these strengths and allow the employee the freedom to utilise their skill-set within the working environment. When this happens much of the misunderstanding about autism falls away and employers recognise what a valuable asset the individual is to their business.

For more information click here.

Supertitle Phase 2: report

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The Supertitle project is one of our key ideas at eQuality Time and it’s also the only one that’s younger than eQuality Time itself. It’s been entirely developed in public view.

We’ve run sessions in 10 schools so far, working with around 60 students in six languages. We’ve made our materials and our technology better and we have a more effective approach to teachers.

The funder for the second phase of the Supertitle project is Awards for All. They would like a report by the end of September, and we spent a proportion of the summer drafting one to  think carefully about where we are and check that everything in the plan has been done.

We like things being in public view here at Supertitle, so if you are interested in the progress of the project, do please read our first draft:  Supertitle Phase 2 report

 

 

ISAAC 2016

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eQuality Time has been at ISAAC 2016, the major (and indeed, probably only) international conference for people interested in AAC.

We were there to try and find helpers and get a real sense of AAC outside of the UK.  It’s hard to know how that went, we met some great people, but only time will tell if they become part of the plan.

In numbers: we spoke to at least 127 people and gave the full demo a little over 40 times. This is probably about four times more than would have happened if we had just gone to the conference without the stand.  By day four we were having more and more people saying things like “Oh, my friend told me about this” which is probably a good sign.

I was pleased that some developers and other people interested in open source found each other in time to hold an early morning meeting.  I’d like to see that happen more and more.  – at the thing, and that was pretty good.  Certainly there are some real things in my own work that will change because of that. Indeed, it was nice in a quiet moment to sit down and play with some code with new people.

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Kate was going to every talk she could for work and even came down to spend time on the stand in the breaks, which was when it was seriously busy.

It is the lot of all events like ISAAC get their share of bad press. I will say that things went wrong, but far fewer than I would have got wrong had I been running the event.

Maps

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We wanted to make a little bit of art while we were there, so we brought along a map and asked people to put a pin in for their home town.  The results were somewhat predictable and mildly worrying. Toronto, our home for the week, was a mass of pins, New York was well represented and so was quite a lot of Weston Europe.

I spoke to nobody from a Spanish speaking country. Nobody.  I spoke to one guy from Africa (working in Toronto, so that hardly counts). and only of three people from Asia. Over four days it became very hard to hide that most of the world is priced out of their right to speech.  While we have a design that we know can help, I was really hoping to meet some people at ISAAC who where working outside of the rich countries.    We clearly need to go back to the drawing board with that.

 

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In a somewhat low moment on one of the days, I was really cheered that my little brother, himself an AAC user, decided to video-call me in the middle of a demo.

I have no, idea why that cheered me up so much, but I got to take him on a virtual tour of the hall and show him some of the new things that were going on

Interview with Justin Tomlinson MP

It’s been an astonishing few weeks in the UK’s political system with lots of change. One of the less reported aspects was the replacement of Justin Tomlinson MP as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People.   To editorialise, although I was and remain opposed to the government’s approach to disability, I’ve met Justin, and he clearly valued people in ways that were important to me (he’s also got a good record on transparency).  He was gracious enough to grant us an interview.

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What’s the achievement that you are most proud of in your role as Minister?
It’s difficult to focus on just one thing but I’d have to say I’m most proud of how many more disabled people are now in employment. Our latest figures show that 360,000 more disabled people are now in employment compared to 2 years ago. That’s massive progress considering the time frame in which we’ve been working, and it’s exciting because it shows that attitudes to disabled people in this country are shifting in the right direction. If we can make employment accessible, on a practical and on a social level, that is a powerful indicator that the reforms we’ve introduced and the campaigns we’ve launched are working.
What’s was biggest problem facing your office day-to-day?
It has to be the sheer scale of what the office is trying to do. In particular, changing the way people think about people with disabilities. This takes time – and a lot of patience. But the many little victories we saw every day made all the hard work worthwhile and were evidence that we were making progress.

I’ve also learned that it’s not just policy that effects positive change – some of the most valuable work happens more indirectly. When the right people are in the room we can get things done that Government intervention alone may not have achieved. For example our work on the built environment, which focuses on accessibility as integral to design, was born out of the desire to make the Paralympic Games in 2012 the most accessible games ever. We’ve continued that commitment and the work has recently been handed over to the Construction Industry Council. Another highlight from this year was my involvement in the Inclusive Technology prize. And recently I was really excited to announce a new taskforce that will be looking into how we can make apprenticeships more accessible for people with learning disabilities – these and other wins inspire me to keep pressing forward.

We’ve continued that commitment and the work has recently been handed over to the Construction Industry Council. Another highlight from this year was my involvement in the Inclusive Technology prize, won this year by Joe Reddington for his communications aid Azule Joe – his software will allow people who are unable to speak, like Joe’s brother, to communicate fully with friends and family. He now has a £50,000 contract that will turn his prototype into reality. And recently I was really excited to announce a new taskforce that will be looking into how we can make apprenticeships more accessible for people with learning disabilities.
Although we know relatively little about how disability affects people’s voting intention the It’s clear that the majority disability campaigners, organisations, and other groups are strongly left-of-centre. Does that make the job much harder than it would be for, say, Jonathan Shaw who was the last left-of-centre MP to hold the equivalent role?
To be honest, in the hundreds and hundreds of meetings I  had, politics has never come up. I’m 100% committed to getting disabled people the help they need – be it extra support to get a job, or through reducing barriers to accessibility – and I’ve found that the people I’ve been working with, regardless of their political leanings, just want to get on with that important work.
To ask a slightly unusual question  – we’re seeing more and more cases of bright children from migrant backgrounds being wrongly identified as having special education needs (see, e.g., http://www.ioe.ac.uk/56528.html) do you have any thoughts on how best to deal with this from a special needs perspective?
It’s crucial that we continue to support all children in their education, and we’ve done a lot of work in the area of Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). Just 20 months ago the Department for Education made fundamental changes to the way the SEND support system works for families – the biggest in a generation. These put children and young people with SEND at the heart of the process, ensuring that they are supported all the way through to adulthood. Since then 74,000 young people have been given personalised education, health and care (EHC) plans. Schools have a vital role to play in this work, which is why the overall school budget has been protected and funding increased by over £90 million this year for children and young people with high needs. The Department for Education is also funding a contract worth just under £500k over one year to support theworkforce in the implementation of the SEND reforms through helping teachers and schools to access practical support and appraise how mosteffectively to work with those with SEND, including effective commissioning of support embedding good practice and assessing coverage of thepreparing for adulthood outcomes. These measures are aimed at making sure support is targeted to suit an individual child’s circumstance, regardless of their background.

Sir Halley Stewart Trust Bid

 

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At eQuality Time we believe that the more transparent an organisation is, the more effective it will be.

One of the things we’d like to be more transparent about is the funding application process.  We’ve just sent off one to Sir Halley Stewart Trust so we wanted to share the application here (Some personal details have been redacted).

One thing that was particularly interesting about this application is that it’s actually a re-application of one that was refused last year.  I had thought that the reapplication was going to be simple – we have some more evidence that we can put in, and we have a chance to tweak some aspects of the application.

Instead, as I worked my way through the document, I was constantly amazed at how badly I had rewritten the document for the first application.  Questions had been misunderstood,  some of the aims of the funder had been missed out and there were a variety of other sins.   I spent at least 6 hours rewriting the document completely and I am much happier now.  I’m unsure why there was such a big difference.

It might be experience:, I’d only written a few bids before applying the first time and I believe I’m better at it now.  On the other hand, it might be that the first one was done under considerable deadline pressure and this one was done with a bit more relaxation.  We’ll see if the second bid has any more success than the first.

Here’s the word document of our answers: 2016 eq halley stewart.

We`d like this to be a regular thing, but there are various other demands on time so it will have to be on a case by case basis.  Obviously, we’ll be posting on the results of this application when it comes back.

Is it now illegal to administer a service online for someone with disabilities?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has handed down a very important decision on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act…. Its reasoning appears to be very broad. If I’m reading it correctly, it says that if you tell people not to visit your website, and they do it anyway knowing you disapprove, they’re committing a federal crime of accessing your computer without authorization.

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This has been doing the rounds for about 24 hours and it’s worth stopping to think about the implications from the perspective of disability. I manage a range of online services for my little brother, who certainly wouldn’t be able to manage them on his own. Reading the ruling – it appears quite clear that this is illegal under US law unless I’ve explicitly got permission from the service to do it…

For most people this is a minor unenforceable oddity, on a par with mild speeding, but I can imagine the knock on effects – for example around asking a care staff member to update your Facebook becomes ordering an employee to carry out an illegal act.

Silly ruling, and one that needs to be updated quickly.

 

CommuniKate: Github and new website

Two cool CommuniKate things to tell you about!
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Website
We’ve updated the CommuniKate website: communikate.equalitytime.co.uk
It was something we thought carefully about for a while, but we wanted a site that focused on the ‘things that help’ rather than the ‘story about the things that help’.   The blog aspects have gone (news and development will be posted here) and the layout has been updated to focus on what’s important: the pagesets.
To go briefly technical – the new site is written in Jekyl (which was a fun framework to play with and I’ve put my notes here), which is truly static (as opposed to WordPresses dynamic page creation).  The reason that static is important is because we’ve chosen to host the CommuniKate site on GitHub pages.
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In fact, the website isn’t the only thing we’re hosting on Github pages.  Up until recently, we had lots of versions of various communiKate pagesets hanging around.  This was getting difficult to manage, so we’ve moved the pagesets (or at least, the ‘master’ versions of them) onto a handy Github repository.  This makes it much easier for people to share, alter, and remix the work (and indeed, update the website).

Bid sent to the Arts Council

At eQuality Time we believe that the more transparent an organisation is, the more effective it will be.

One of the things we’d like to be more transparent about is the funding application process.   We’ve just put in a bid to the Arts Council: here is the way that I described it to the directors of eQuality time:

The Arts Council has some funding available to, effectively, pay artists to create art and for over a year I’ve been getting around to writing a bid that says “Give us some money and we will pay 10 talented writers from groups that tend not be given time and space to write. We’ll put them in a room for a week and produce an amazing novel”.  The writers get paid and get better and we get to run TooManyCooks with all the safety catches off .

With some help we’ve finally submitted something.  It’s a form-based thing so it’s hard to give the exact application. However, we can give you something better – for grants I’ve started to get into the habit of preparing a document that answers all of the grant questions, but also includes all the other things we want to say.  You can read the arts council version here: The most public novel ever written.