Register: $15 USD

Presentation Description
Dr. Steven Kapp will discuss research related to the impact of becoming aware of one’s autism, including in childhood versus adulthood. It will include the importance of proactively and holistically sharing their child’s autism diagnosis with them, for the child’s autistic identity and well-being. Educators and therapists can use this information to help coach parents. The talk will explain the position of the neurodiversity movement and the medical model in relation to disclosure and the importance of this topic. Similarly, it will provide an overview of how autism social deficit models exacerbate stigma and trauma, and propose solutions.

Participants will leave with an understanding of

• the importance of timing, tone, and proactivity for positive outcomes from diagnostic disclosure of autism.
• how disclosure impacts autistic people’s well-being, including their own choices when informing others about their autism.
• alternatives to the dominant deficit-based diagnosis and frameworks for understanding and communicating about autism.

Audience: This educational presentation is appropriate for Autistic people, family members and carers of autistic children and autistic young people, therapy providers including SLPS, OTs, and Mental Health Counselors, and Educators.

The course includes a fact sheet and a Certificate of Attendance

Presenter bio
Dr. Steven Kapp is a developmental psychologist, He is a Lecturer in Psychology at University of Portsmouth with expertise in autism and neurodiversity. Dr. Kapp’s academic background includes psychology, education, public policy, and disability studies, with additional publications in anthropology, medicine, and neuroscience reaching diverse audiences and readerships.

Dr. Kapp:
“After becoming aware of the neurodiversity and disability rights movements in 2007, I became involved in advocacy on developmental disabilities and speaking and research on autism. I graduated from the University of Southern California with a BSc in Public Policy, and served on California state projects to support people with learning disabilities’ transition to competitive, integrated employment from 2010 to 2016. As director of science in the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, I substantially influenced the revision of autism’s diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5. As a MA (2013) and PhD (2016) student in Human Development and Psychology within Education at University of California, Los Angeles, I began to research and teach on autism and neurodiversity. This included first authorship on a study on autism and the neurodiversity movement in Developmental Psychology that presented the first known direct comparison of autistic and non-autistic people’s attitudes toward autism, and provided evidence on both the views and influence of the movement.

My postdoctoral career has taken place in the UK. As a Research Fellow on the Wellcome Trust-funded project Exploring Diagnosis: Autism and Neurodiversity at the University of Exeter (2016-2019), I published research on all dimensions of the project (diagnosis as a process and category, and the consequences of diagnosis). This included producing the edited collection Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline, the first history of the neurodiversity movement by first-hand accounts of advocates and activists. In October 2019 I joined University of Portsmouth as a Lecturer in the Psychology Department.