Category: Autism
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Spoon Theory and Autism: Energy, Burnout and Monotropism
What spoon theory means for Autistic people: how everyday tasks use up limited energy, why spoons run out faster, and how monotropism and burnout fit in.
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Masking, Internalised Ableism and Imposter Syndrome: What We Do to Survive, and What We Are Taught to Believe
Masking is what we do to survive. Internalised ableism is what we are taught to believe. Imposter syndrome asks whether we belong. Helen Edgar gently untangles all three.
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Free Resources for Autistic Adults: The Thriving Autistic Discovery Programme
Free, self-paced videos, guides and tools for recently identified Autistic adults, from the Thriving Autistic Discovery Programme. What it is, who it is for, what it covers, and how to explore it.
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Bagpuss: Lost Things. Holding Space for Emergence & Joy
Exploring Bagpuss through a neurodivergent lens: monotropism, slow attention, and the quiet beauty of restoring meaning to lost and overlooked things.
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The Neurodivergent Community Standing in Solidarity Against Racism and Ableism
Solidarity Against Racism & Ableism in the Autistic & Neurodivergent Community
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Autistic Mental Health Conference 2026: Ecosystemic Causes of Mental Health Issues
Autistic Mental Health Conference 2026: Ecosystemic Causes of Mental Health Issues
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Stimming, Glimmers & Solidarity: Celebrating Autistic Pride Together
What is Autistic Pride Day? Explore its history, stimming, and glimmers with NeuroHub Community, Stimpunks & Autistic Realms.
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Penguin Pebbling: Theory, Practice and the Five Neurodivergent Love Locutions — A Guide for Practitioners
Penguin Pebbling is a low-demand, neurodiversity-affirming card game built around the Five Neurodivergent Love Locutions — five relational modes natural to many Autistic and neurodivergent people: infodumping, parallel play, support swapping, penguin pebbling, and deep pressure
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Five Autistic Love Locutions: Showing Care And Love In Different Ways
Autistic people have always had our own ways of showing love. Discover the five Autistic love locutions — infodumping, parallel play, support swapping, penguin pebbling and deep pressure.
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Penguin Pebbling: A Game of Creating Belonging, Building Connection and Understanding Autistic Identity
Penguin Pebbling: A Game of Creating Belonging, Building Connection and Understanding Autistic Identity
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Weird Pride in a Hostile World
Weird Pride is a practice of becoming. A refusal to shrink. A quiet, feral devotion to staying alive as ourselves in a world that keeps trying to make us something else.
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The Autistic Rhizome: Community, Liminal Spaces & Belonging
Autistic belonging grows through community, from liminal spaces, not conformity.
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Re-Storying Autism
Re-Storying Autism A Framework For Families, Parents, And Carers: Reimagining Support For Autistic People. #1 Amazon Bestseller
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Re-Storying Autism: A New Course & Workbook Now Available!
Re-Storying Autism: A Framework for Families, Parents and Carers Reimagining Support For Autistic People Neurodiversity Affirming Neurodivergent Competent
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Monotropism, Limerence And Autistic ADHD Experiences
Limerence in Autistic and ADHD people may be shaped by monotropism, a natural tendency toward deep focus and emotional intensity. Rather than being unhealthy or excessive, this pattern reflects how monotropic people engage deeply with relationships, meaning, and how they form connections.
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Stimming as Embodied Sensory Language
Reframing stimming beyond “behaviour” as embodied sensory language, monotropic flow, and neuroqueer, interdependent connection with the world.
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Free 2025 Advent Calendar & Neuro-Affirming Autism Resources
Free 2025 Advent Calendar & Neuro-Affirming Autism Resources
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Join NeuroHub Community Space
Join me & David Gray-Hammond in our new community NeuroHub. Access to exclusive webinars, resources and space to connect with others! Hope to see some of you there!
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Understanding the Double Empathy Problem: A Guide For Autistic People & Families
FREE Neuro-Affirming Communication & Sensory Passport + Training Support Autistic people through better understanding of communication, sensory needs & double empathy.
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Presuming Competence: A Neuro-Affirming Reframe To Support Autistic People
When “presume competence” is applied without a neuro-affirming lens, it can become a harmful, ableist expectation
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Ethics & Values of Autistic Realms
Autistic Realms is grounded in values of authenticity, autonomy, and relational care for the human rights of Autistic or otherwise neurodivergent and disabled people. These guiding principles align closely with the ethics and principles of both the Therapist Neurodiversity Collective (TNDC) and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (which I am a member of – ASAN),…
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Discovering Belonging: Creating Neuro-Affirming Animations with Thriving Autistic
Discovering Belonging: Neuro-Affirming Animations with Thriving Autistic. Celebrate Autistic identity through the Discovery Programme and new animations that explore belonging, strengths, and community.
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Being Autistic shapes grief: Explore unique paths through loss and affirming support
Explore how Autistic people experience grief differently and discover affirming resources, support, and strategies for navigating loss with compassion.
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Reflections on the Autistic Mental Health Conference 2025
Reflections On The Autistic Mental Health Conference. An Interview between David Gray-Hammond & Helen Edgar
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SPACE-TIME: A Monotropism Informed Framework for Autistic People
SPACE-TIME: A Monotropism-Informed Neuroaffirming Framework for Autistic People
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Autistic Mental Health: Beyond the Pathology Paradigm
Autistic mental health is often framed through a narrow, deficit-based lens — one that focuses on pathology, risk, and what’s “wrong.” But this view leaves out the richness of autistic lives, the diversity of our needs, and the resilience in our communities. Moving beyond the pathology paradigm means centring lived experience, recognising the systemic barriers…
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Why PBS is Harmful for Autistic and Neurodivergent Young People
Exploring why and how Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) can harm Autistic people. #Neurodiversity #AutismAcceptance #PBS #DisabilityJustice
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Neuro-Affirming Neurodivergent & Disabled Wheel of Life: Reclaiming Flow on Our Own Terms
Neuro-Affirming Neurodivergent & Disabled Wheel of Life: Reclaiming Flow on Our Own Terms Workbook available for instant download.
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Autistic Pride: Rest, Resistance & Monotropism
Written for Autistic Pride Day 2025: what Autistic Pride means to me, from monotropism and the cost of masking to reclaiming rest and finding belonging in community.
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Autistic Pride: Restorying & Unknowing Autism
Restorying is how we reclaim our Autistic voices, honour our ways of knowing, and build futures rooted in connection, not correction.
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Toileting: A Neuroaffirming Approach to Support your Autistic Child
Toileting is not a race. For many Autistic children, the journey may look different. Respecting a child’s pace, sensory needs, and body signals can make all the difference.
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Testimonials for Autistic Realms
Testimonials gathered from National Diversity Awards nomination feedback 2024 and 2025. Feel free to vote for me and others here: Helen is breaking new ground in the dismantling of neuronormativity while working tirelessly to grow and deliver her practice as an Autistic Advocate. I have known of Helen’s work for over 20 years and she…
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Neuro-Affirming Research in Practice: Supporting Autistic Students, Embracing Monotropism In The Classroom And Beyond
Written by Tanya Adkin and Helen Edgar, based on the presentation we delivered to the National Autistic Society Professionals’ Conference in March, 2025. Shared with permission from NAS. We will explore the importance of the theory of monotropism and the significance of flow states and suggest some practical strategies educators can implement to create more…
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Could it be PANS/PANDAS… Be Curious!
This collection of text and images was created collaboratively by neurodivergent educators, working together to shine a light on this often-overlooked area of care and support. Helen Edgar, Joanne Riordan, Laura Hellfeld, Viv Dawes, Julie Webb and Ben Palmer . Have you noticed a change in your child’s ability to cope with life or a decline in their well-being? It is…
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Autistic Young People & Friendships
Discover how Autistic young people experience and build friendships in a way that honors their unique communication styles and interests.
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Call for Submissions: Share your experiences of being monotropic.
Open Invite: Share your experiences of being monotropic. Share poems, art, blogs, essays, videos, podcasts, music, etc., that reflect your experience of being monotropic. We will publish across Stimpunks & Autistic Realms as part of our community project. Some stories may be chosen for a community ebook that will be openly licensed; if you would…
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Autism & The Map of Neuronormative Domination: Stuck States vs Flow States
The Map of Monotropic Experiences now has a home of its own. Read more about neuronormative domination, the water the whole map sits in, at monotropicmap.org, and explore each of the twenty areas of the map there too. In collaboration with Ryan Boren, Chelsea Adams and Norah Hobbs from Stimpunks I have created: Autism &…
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Book Review: I didn’t see you there. By Charlotte Gale
I didn’t see you there by Charlotte Gale is a powerful journey of poetic memoirs of one family’s path through mental health crisis, diagnosis and embracing neurodivergence. I have been privileged to proof read a copy of this book prior to publication and share my thoughts. “I know I’m not alone thinking or feeling this…
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Autistic Burnout – Supporting Young People At Home & School
Autistic burnout in young people is real—and recovery starts with understanding. This post offers neuroaffirming ways to spot the signs, reduce demands, and truly support. 💛 #AutisticBurnout #Neuroaffirming #Monotropism #AutisticSupport
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An Autistic Experience of Social Media
I am writing this one month into my journey of setting up Autistic Realms; I aim to support and develop understanding and awareness about neurodivergence, education and mental health. As a late-identified autistic person and also a parent and teacher, I have always found real-life communication and interaction quite ‘difficult’ and complex to navigate. I…
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Autistic Community: Connections and Becoming
Everyone seeks connection in some way or another. Connections may look different for autistic people. In line with the motto from Anna Freud’s National Autism Trainer Programme (Acceptance, Belonging and Connection), creating a sense of acceptance and belonging is likely to be more meaningful for autistic people than putting pressure on them to try and…
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Transitions – Supporting young people throughout the day
Updated October 2026. Transitions are one of the biggest hidden demands in a young person’s day, and understanding why they cost so much comes back to monotropism: every switch pulls attention out of a tunnel and costs energy. The ideas below still hold. For the theory in plain language see the monotropism guide; for the…
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Penguin Pebbling: An Autistic Love Language
Penguin Pebbling is a neurodivergent way of showing you care, like sharing a meme or twig or pretty stone to say “I’m thinking of you,” inspired by penguins who gift pebbles to those they care about.
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Autism is fluid
Updated October 2026. “Being Autistic” is one of the searches that brings most people here, so a word on where this post sits now. It is a short statement of the neurodiversity paradigm: autism is a way of being, not a disorder to fix, and Autistic needs are fluid. If you want the vocabulary behind…
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Book Review: The New Normal-Autistic musings on the threat of a broken society by David Gray-Hammond
David Gray-Hammond’s new book The New Normal – Autistic musings on the threat of a broken society (2022) is a fantastic and wonderful addition to not only the Autistic and neurodivergent community but is also an accessible text for those who are less familiar with the neurodiversity paradigm and the flipside of the…
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Book Review -Square Pegs, Inclusivity, Compassion & Fitting in (A guide for Schools)
Square Pegs: Inclusivity, compassion and fitting in – a guide for schools. Fran Morgan with Elllie Costello, edited by Ian Gilbert. Independent Thinking Press (2023) The knowledge and ideas in the new book, Square Pegs (2023) has the potential to transform our education system and support those working with young people in schools to make…
