Thursday, 03 December 2020 at 18:00 – 19:00
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Luke Beardon’s talk for the CRAE Annual Lecture provides a celebratory vision for what a future autistic utopia might look like!

About this Event

The Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) is delighted to announce that the 2020 CRAE Annual Lecture (previously postponed due to Covid-19) will now take place online! The lecture will be given by Luke Beardon, who will speak on ‘Autopia (Autistic Utopia)’.

Luke has been working for decades in the autism field, in capacities ranging from practitioner to researcher, trainer to Senior Lecturer in autism at Sheffield Hallam University.

Luke’s talk will identify what he believes to be the current state of play as regards societal and professional conceptualisation of autistic individuals, and provide a vision for what a future autistic utopia might look like, purely from his perspective.

Ranging from why we may want to consider the abolition of school bells through to working in a stationary cupboard; from a critique of autism-related terms to why inclusion may not be all it’s purported to be; and from multiples of three to a hug-aversive Australian considering flying to the UK to embrace him, Luke’s presentation will be wide-ranging, possibly provocative, probably contentious, and unapologetically celebratory in tone.

Trigger warning: In order to identify an optimistic future, Luke will start the talk by highlighting some of the rather more negative aspects of the autistic experience at the start of the evening. Bear with him, though, it’s not all going to be doom nor gloom.

We very much look forward to welcoming Luke Beardon to CRAE to speak on such an important topic and hope that you can join us for this special, free to attend event.

In advance of the event, we will email attendees with joining instructions.

The CRAE team.

Thursday, 07 March 2019 at 18:30 – 19:30
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Peter Vermeulen – Autism and happiness: From neurodiversity to neuroharmony

The Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) is delighted to announce that the 2019 CRAE Annual Lecture will be given by Peter Vermeulen, who will speak on ‘autism and happiness: from neurodiversity to neuroharmony’.

With a MSc and PhD in Psychology and Educational Sciences, Peter has worked with autistic people and their families for more than 30 years. Founder of “Autism in Context” and Senior Lecturer at Autisme Centraal (a training and education centre for autism), Peter is an internationally respected lecturer/trainer and presents all over Europe and beyond. Peter has written more than 15 books and several articles on autism.

Peter explains that with more than 10 scientific articles per day, autism is just about the most studied condition in the world. We need all this research to increase our understanding of a condition involving, like no other, myths and misconceptions. Yet happiness has received little attention in the field of autism. Outcome and intervention studies, for instance, rarely take emotional well-being as a desired outcome. And when the focus is on well-being, it is often from a negative perspective, namely the lack of well-being and quality of life amongst autistic people. It is time to take a U-turn in our approach and change from an exclusive focus on what makes autism so different (and from a negative, clinical and medical approach of happiness in autism, i.e., a lack of distress) towards a shared and positive focus (we all want to be happy). In other words: let’s move from neurodiversity to neuroharmony.

We very much look forward to welcoming Peter Vermeulen to CRAE to speak on such an important topic and hope that you can join us for this special, free to attend event.

Anna Remington and the CRAE team.

The RADA bar will be open for a pre-event drink from 17.30 pm.

The venue is fully accessible.

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