Autism Awareness and the Aspie-Friendly Project

Without taking into account autistic features, autistic people have :

• a lower rate of access to higher education than in high school

• a success rate in higher education that is lower than expected

• significant difficulties in accessing employment

• careers that are often more limited if autism is not taken into account

The situation improves greatly when :

• we know about autism and understand its impact

• we recognize that autistic people have particularities that are neither negative nor positive

• there is no normality: everyone has differences, at very different levels

• we place ourselves in an inclusive approach

Good news: when we act in an inclusive way, we improve the situation for everyone

Neurodevelopment: all the mechanisms which, from the earliest age, and even before birth, structure the setting up of the brain networks involved in motor skills, vision, hearing, language or social interactions.

List of IDDs: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), intellectual development disorder, dys disorders (dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysphasia, dyscalculia, dysorthography), attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity (ADHD).

Epidemiological data:

• ASD: 1% in general population;

• ADHD: 5% of children and adolescents, 2.5% of adults;

• Dyslexia: 5 to 17% of school-aged children;

• Developmental coordination disorder (formerly called dyspraxia): up to 6% in the general population;

• Intellectual disability: about 1% in the general population.

The diagnosis of autism is made following a well-defined protocol:

• It is made by a physician

• It is the result of several diagnostic evaluation tests performed by trained professionals (psychologists, psychomotricians, speech therapists, etc.)

• It is based on international standards, in particular the DSM5

When a person is diagnosed with autism, it is the result of a serious and scientifically standardized procedure.

• A level of language that is sometimes out of sync

• Difficulty initiating and maintaining social relationships and exchanges

• Difficulty understanding :

  • sarcasm and irony

  • metaphors

  • implicit

  • literal interpretation of expressions

• Difficulty reading and understanding facial expressions and non-verbal communication

• unfiltered, direct communication

• Staring or evasive gaze

Zoom

Hyper or hypo sensoriality in the various modalities: hearing, sight, touch, taste, smell, sense of balance, sense of pain, awareness of one's body in space

• Sensory overload preventing concentration, stress

• Difficulty locating in space

• Unusual reactions to environmental elements

• Fatigability

• Intense interest in one or more subjects, usually very specific

• Adherence to routines, difficulties with changes and the unexpected

• Specific interests: an important lever of motivation and investment

• Difficulties in organization:

  • task sequencing

  • planification

• Perseverance/procrastination

• Difficulties for :

  • performance monitoring, feedback

  • inhibition of inappropriate responses

• Difficulty maintaining attention

• Difficulty in understanding situations, especially social ones, for :

  • connect elements of the context to create meaning

  • put yourself in the place of others: understand the intentions, desires and emotions of others

• Difficulties in understanding people:

  • understand the intentions

  • understand "automatically" how others feel

• Bibliographic research

• Assessment of the existing work

• Development of an innovative work (theoretical and/or experimental)

• Valuation of the thesis work (publications, patents, conferences)

• Writing of a research paper

• Defense and presentation of the results obtained

At all these stages, difficulties may arise for a person with a disability

• Provide enough focus to prevent the research from going off in all directions, which is characteristic of tree thinking.

• Regular review and positive reinforcement of what is being done.

• Ensure that the student has understood in the first few days, via feedback on the method (and not only on the content of the books) and adapt to the disability situation if necessary.

• Detail all the key steps in writing the balance sheet:

  • give a concrete example to summarize an article

  • define with the person the expectations in volume and form: for example, a one-page reading sheet per article, no more than one day per article

• Use a backwards pedagogy to set up work automatisms:

  • do the work completely with them once

  • then let the person finish the writing and so on until complete autonomy

• Ensure that all instructions and steps are understood, and write them down to ensure that the tasks are done in order

• Take into account tree thinking: risk of "drifting" into related subjects

• Potential difficulties in getting organized: at the beginning, propose a more important division of tasks

• Modulate the follow-up according to potential difficulties: writing for example

• Be vigilant about group activities

• Provide an appropriate environment (sound, light, etc.)

• Choose a meeting place with the doctoral student (pay attention to noise level, lighting, table layout, etc.).

• Be very explicit in communication:

  • specify what is going well

  • clearly indicate if things are not going well and suggest ways to improve

  • don't wait for the student to guess your thoughts

• Autistic people may have difficulty assessing the "right" level of writing development: they may be too concise or too detailed in their writing.

• Be aware that scientific publications follow implicit standards: make them explicit

• Plan the writing work: anticipate the production, try to evaluate the time needed, organize this time

• Regularly check that the instructions are well understood

• Mind maps can be useful for organizing thoughts and sometimes facilitate the definition of the volume of work to be done for the writing

• Speaking in a group can be complicated for some autistic people.

• Often, when answering questions, time is needed (longer than for other PhD students) to think about the question asked.

• Speaking is not impossible, but it is extremely energy consuming

• When traveling for a conference, the person will tend to separate from the group, to avoid too many tiring social interactions.

Conférence Nationale du Handicap, 26 avril 2023 : « Strengthen employment requirements for people with disabilities in the public service »

For the integration of disabled employees in the civil service,

several levers will be mobilized:

→ Deployment of mentoring ;

→ Evolution of the tenure system for beneficiaries of the employment obligation;

→ Implementation of a support program for agents with disabilities;

→ Mobilization of the interministerial community in terms of recruitment and career paths for people with disabilities;

→ Setting a target of 6% of apprentices with disabilities;

→ Integration of indicators from the government's "Employment & Disability" barometer into the "Public Service +" label.

The Fonds pour l'Insertion des Personnes Handicapées dans la Fonction Publique (FIPHFP) provides funding for many measures.

In particular :

• Internship Allowance

• Aid for adapting the workstation

• Support for tutoring disabled persons: to finance the specific time of an internal employee of the employer trained as a tutor in order to facilitate the reception and integration of the newly recruited disabled person or to support him/her in a new position in the context of a reclassification or a change of assignment.

• Support system for the employment of people with disabilities:

  • Medical and psychological support provided by a service or actor external to the employer

  • Support in the workplace provided by a specialized service external to the employer

• Communication, information and awareness of employees