Post-Diagnostic Support Group Minutes – April 2017

Minutes of the Twentieth
Post-Diagnostic Support Group
12th April 2017

Today’s group was attended by 45 people.

Linda started the group by firstly apologising for Carly & Gail’s absence from the group because of Gail’s mum passing (also Carly’s nanna), then mentioned the reasons behind Claire and Dip’s absence.

Linda then introduced everyone in attendance including Sara who won two Awards at the Bafta hosted Autism Uncut.

She then went on to explain the structure of the group and how this was formulated with the groups own input. There was a brief introduction to the books on display, in particular
the book which was written by Dream and that this book was available to purchase.

Respect everyone at the group and

confidentiality of each individual.

Sensory Sensitivities Presentation

Throughout this Linda explained a lot about sensory issues, including sensory processing disorder, sensory diets and how this was relevant to Autism. Sensory overload and mentioned the short film released the National Autistic Society which was about a young girl who wasn’t being given enough time to process everything and that it was a really good film and advised people to take a look, also Sara mentioned one that was done for adults along the same theme and that she would send a link to Axia. Linda then moved on to the nervous system and how no one agrees how many senses there are and the levels of sensitivities, there was a discussion involving light sensitivities in the room for example the projector light being bright and how certain individuals had different views on what they saw when looking at the white walls and other blank spaces, which also moved onto similar noise intrusions.

Linda moved onto a discussion about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hyper Mobility Syndrome, Sara explained how difficult it is to identify, quantify and describe the effects on an individual, and the need for listening to people by health care professionals.

Calvin then introduced his top 10 films and explained a little on each one and that they were available to loan and the books were also available to loan.

We then had a 15 minute break for tea, coffee and cake.

Linda then started with the Autism pride walk on the 18th June in Chester, and went on to detail the meeting time which is 2pm and that we will be doing a walk through Chester and down to Grosvenor Park where we will be having a picnic.

Linda moved on to the Conference in September 2018 and explained who was going to be speaking and a breakdown of what was involved for the event, which moved onto the flyer and that Scott had done 4 designs and that the name was going to remain the same which is
Autism “People behind the masks”.

While the group were deciding which flyer would be used to promote the conference, Sara explained her video blog which was on the subject of Autism and about the link to YouTube, Also Linda mentioned that Axia had a new staffroom and the reasons behind having one.

After the decision had been made as to which flyer would be used for the conference a member of the group asked Linda where the name Axia had originated from, which is that it’s a Greek word meaning value and worth, and Axia was established in 1998 by her partner and Calvin’s father Albert Atkinson.

The next support group will be the 24th May at 12pm-2:00pm

Dr Luke Beardon will be presenting. The whole of the session will be for Luke apart from the time at the end for various photographs that need to be taken.