This is my Autism - TruHap

The question “What is autism” has concerned everybody who has come across an autistic person. Researchers have been trying to answer this affirmatively, for many decades now. But these descriptions are based on external observations and many a time; do not completely match the lived experiences of Autistic people. Yet, we seldom have public discussions about autism from the point of view of an Autistic person.

To celebrate autism awareness month in April 2022, we are organising: This is my autism: a one of its kind conference in India.

It will feature only Autistic presenters, who will educate us about how autism looks like from the inside. We hope that these stories and ideas will lead us to better understand Autism and support our loved ones who are Autistic.

Conference platform

This conference will be conducted on Zoom. We suggest you download the zoom app or use its browser version for a good experience. We will send you the unique conference login details via email closer to time. We are expecting a large number of audiences. Therefore, to avoid noise, all attendees will be muted upon entry to the conference room.

Languages

All presentations will be in one or more of the following languages.

Presentation Time

Each presentation will be 10-15 minutes long.

Who is this conference for?

• Autistic people
• Parents of Autistic people
• Other loved ones of Autistic people: siblings/ friends/ colleagues/ relatives
• Professionals working with Autistic people
• Disability rights advocates
• Students of sociology, education, psychology and disability studies

What we expect from you

1. Completed attendee registration form – Please fill out the attendee details form.
2. Payment – please complete the payment using the registration form and send us a screenshot
3. Permission to record – Some individuals may be able to access the conference only through a recorded file. To support them, we will be recording all presentations in the video format.
4. Patience – Many of our presenters have no prior experience in giving presentations to the audience. All we want is to give them a platform to voice their opinions.
5. Empathy–We do not expect our presenters to follow the social norms of presenting. We will encourage them to be their authentic selves, even if it means they are stimming, or they forget and ask for help. We expect you to support us in this endeavour.

What you can expect from us

1. World class learning – This is a one of its kind conferences. It’s only the second time such an event is happening in South Asiaand we aim to break many ceilings and bust many myths. So there will be lots of learning, on par with international trends.
2. Empathy – Many of the volunteers on the organising team are neurodiverse and we understand you. We have had some of the same experiences as you and we feel you. So, if you have any access needs, please do get in touch with us.

Questions and Answer Session

Attendees will be allowed to type in their questions and comments throughout the session. One of the organisers from the TruHap team will make a list of all the questions. And during each Q&A session, the questionswill be read out one by one.

There will be one Q & A session after every 3 presentations. This will give our presenters time to articulate their answers.

However, please note that presenters do have the option of refusing to answer a question. There can be many reasons for this:

• The presenter is unable to communicate, at that time, in a way you could understand
• The presenter is offended by the question
• The presenter’s trauma is triggered while thinking of the answer or communicating the answer.

The following topics are not appropriate to the theme and vision of the conference. Therefore, questions pertaining to these themes will automatically be screened out:

1. Cure for or prevention of Autism
2. Causes for Autism

Are you an Autistic Adult and would like to be part of this conference?
Click the below button to know more about Presentation guidelines and be a Presenter.

Are you an Autistic Adult who owns a business? Share it on our platform to get promoted during the event.