Honouring Autistic Communication
In this webinar, Elaine McGreevy will look at autistic communication, which is often misunderstood or overlooked when measured against narrow expectations.
In conversation
Speaker: Elaine McGreevy
Autistic communication is often misunderstood or overlooked when it is measured against narrow expectations about speech, body language, attention, reciprocity and social interaction. This session explores autistic communication as rich, embodied, sensory, relational and deeply meaningful.
Together, we will consider how sensory, perceptual and neurocognitive differences shape autistic ways of communicating and connecting; including echolalia, stimming, neurodivergent conversational styles, AAC, movement, silence and body-based forms of connection. We will also explore how masking, stress, repeated correction and relational safety can shape authentic communication and access to communication.
Grounded in neurodiversity-informed and experience-sensitive perspectives, this session invites professionals, families and supporters to move beyond deficit-based assumptions and towards a more expansive, relational understanding of communication - one that honours autistic ways of expressing, connecting and making meaning.
About Elaine:
Elaine McGreevy is a neurodivergent speech and language therapist who has worked with autistic children and young people for 30 years. She is an associate and content developer for Autism Central.
About this session
- “In conversation” webinars: A special series with researchers and clinicians. A chance for families to hear the latest insights, ask questions, and explore how evidence and lived experience meet in practice.
- Rooted in lived experience and strengthened by research, working in partnership and delivered by UCL’s Group for Research in Relationships And NeuroDiversity (GRRAND).
- These are free NHS England commissioned sessions delivered by Anna Freud.
- Online via Zoom.