In honour of Autism Awareness week, we decided to take our own advice and learn about autism.
Autistica, is a research charity dedicated to helping autistic people and their families to live long, healthy, happy lives. They are helping us to learn all we can with their new campaign, Understand More.
What Autistica is all about
Autistica was founded in 2004 by Dame Stephanie Shirley – the mother of an autistic son. Autistica has quickly grown to be the leading autism research charity in the UK. All of their research is focused on community priorities. They have projects looking at anxiety, anorexia, language and communication and ageing with autism. You’ll find no shortage of information and resources here, as they aim to gather as much information and create as much awareness about autism as they can.
The campaign
The Understand More campaign, with Autistica’s core values at the forefront is helping the public understand not just autism but the people who are autistic. The campaign focuses on how autistic people experience the world first-hand. The most unique thing about this charity and their campaign is that they work directly with autistic individuals to create the content for this project. They are promoting completely authentic information so the world can learn just exactly what autism is all about.
Understand More has a bigger mission than just educating the public. They hope that by learning more about autism and how people who are autistic experience the world, they can create more environments to accommodate them. Their aim is to find out what things can trigger anxiety and what things are soothing, to help shape a world that is more comfortable for us all.
You can watch a special behind scenes making of the film below with a cast of autistic actors and narrators show us what Understand More is all about.
