Acceptance Matters Society doing better Health & Wellbeing Learn Our Language Autistic Identity Autism Activists Support & Expression Post-Conference Services Share & Connect Home Home Nurturing autistic youth Alexithymia Gender and Identity Double empathy School based anxiety Acceptance Matters is a virtual conference hosted by the North East Autism Society. Featuring a panel of autistic speakers, the conference will cover topics including double empathy, school-based anxiety and nurturing autistic young people. The event takes place on Friday, 26th May from 9.30am. Places are limited, so please register to secure your place. Click on the signposts on the interactive map to find out more about the topics and speakers. Sign up to the conference Home Conference Details Speakers Dr Damian Milton Eliza Fricker Erin Ekins Quinn Dexter Cathy Wassell Lauren Osbourne Katie Toner Conference Schedule Help & FAQs Book Tickets Contact Us Back to main website Acting Neurotypical Performing neurotypical social interaction harms Autistic people. So why are we still using Social Skills Training? Presenter: Emily Lees In this talk, Emily will discuss her personal experiences growing up as an autistic person, having been told the way she talks, acts and dresses is wrong, and the impact this has had on her wellbeing. Emily says that the idea that autistic children have social deficits and social impairments is wrong and stigmatising, and she wants to completely eliminate social skills training within speech and language therapy practice, adding that it significantly harms wellbeing and mental health. About the presenter Emily is an Autistic Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) based in Manchester. She is the Founder of www.AutisticSLT.com and Co-Founder of www.DivergentPerspectives.co.uk. Emily works in a specialist setting supporting Autistic children and young people, and campaigns for radical changes in therapy practices through public speaking, training, and education in order to transform the way professionals assess and support Autistic people. Follow Emily on Twitter Manage Cookie Preferences