This session shares our journey of building a cross-campus and community partnership to amplify autistic voices. Using a Photovoice methodology, we engaged autistic self- and community advocates to visually document their lived experiences of advocacy, identity, and inclusion. Drawing from these visuals (annotated collages combining words and images) the study participants described and interpreted their experiences in close collaboration with other participants and the research team.
Together, we explored how community-based participatory methods can empower autistic voices and inform more inclusive practices in higher education and community advocacy. This presentation will share lessons learned from our partnership-building process, the creative outputs from the project, and reflections from both researchers and community members on what it means to engage in authentic, equity-centered reflection and collaboration. Conference attendees will have a chance to experience the methods used in the study to explore events in their own journey as advocates/self-advocates.
Our presentation includes faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and community advocates, and draws from the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, the Disability Cultural Center, and NeuroPride, a student-led neurodiversity group, in partnership with local disability advocacy organizations and individuals from the Madison community.
This ongoing study is led by Sara Park, Jina Chun, Helen Rottier, River Kratochvil, Muharrem Koc, Gizem Tekinarslan, Eunjeong Ko, Natalie Kantor, Hope Goldsmith, and Yuhan Huang. Abram Becker, Daniel Pell, and Tara Martens join the presentation as community members and participants of the study.
Rebecca speaks to the tender, surprising, and deeply creative experience of inhabiting autism as a way of being.
In this session, she invites participants to reflect on their autistic identities through the lens of beauty as a powerful form of activism. Rebecca believes that when our community knows who we are - individually and together - and we claim it as our birthright, our collective capacity for creativity, innovation, and wellbeing is infinite. We come into a power that cannot be taken away by any government or regime.
Together, we will explore how reclaiming our identities as beautiful not only strengthens our collective wellbeing but also deepens our ability to stay rooted in possibility when traditional supports fall short.
Participants will leave the session with a renewed sense of reverence for the strength of who we are together.
This panel will explore the concrete elements of creating change. How do we “do” community building and political advocacy? Many autistic people are extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the structural issues we face, but struggle to translate that into concrete action.
During this session, we will hear from people with experience making change happen, both in and outside the autism community. We will also explore possible approaches to community building, political advocacy, and social change—for example, starting a community center for autistic adults.
*This panel will start with an introduction and short reflection on key issues & expertise from each panelist. After each panelist has shared this perspective (about 3-5 minutes per panelist), we will invite the audience to converse with the panelists and each other in a discussion of concrete steps that can and should be taken by our autism community, including both autistic adults and their allies. As with other discussions at INTEGRAL, the host with facilitate these conversations.