Live Webinar: Understanding Autistic Thinking

Are you a non-autistic professional, parent or ally wanting to better understand how Autistic people think and perceive the world around them? Or perhaps you are Autistic yourself and want to understand yourself more? If you want to hear practical insights from one of Australia’s foremost Autistic authors and researchers, then this session is for you!

Join Dr Wenn Lawson, world-renowned Autistic author, presenter, researcher, parent and grandparent for our upcoming workshop to learn more about how this important area shapes every Autistic experience. Covering the key areas of executive functioning, monotropism and inertia, task completion, and demand processing, this workshop will support you to understand better some of the challenges and benefits of Autistic ways of thinking and processing. It will help you build empathy and develop strategies for solving problems and navigating everyday life.

This workshop will: 

• Define some key differences in Autistic executive functioning, and explore how these might manifest in Autistic people’s daily lives (including organisation, communication and task completion), 

• Offer practical tips to support executive functioning challenges, and maximise organic Autistic ways of processing, 

• Consider how monotropism and Autistic inertia impact executive functioning,  

• Discuss the ways that Autistic executive functioning can be affected by demand overwhelm, or the interpretation of demands, and 

• Explore practical ways to harness monotropic processing to benefit Autistic individuals and their executive functioning. 

Professional ticket holders will receive a 1.5 hr CPD certificate for their attendance.  

Dr. Wenn B. Lawson (PhD)

Dr. Wenn is passionate about autism, mental health, all things LGBTQIA+ and building autism understanding across the generations, professions and the world. He is a well know author, speaker and poet. Wenn is an Adjunct Associate Professor with Curtin University, WA, and member of CARG (Curtin University’s Autism Research Group). He has published as a Senior Researcher with Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Curtin University WA and The University of Queensland, Australia. Wenn’s focus has been to highlight the need for co-production in a variety of neurodivergent research, to contribute to the call of the autistic voice: ‘it must be nothing about me without me’ and to highlight the needs of those who are late in coming to a recognition of their autism as well as the reality that adaptive morphing (masking) has had on mental health. 

Wenn is a key theorist of the Monotropism theory of Autism. Wenn resides on a number of boards, including the editorial board for ‘Autism in Adulthood’, the Autism Research Institute (ARI) (US), and The American Autism Association. As well as being a well-known author, Wenn is a family man with a love for birds. 

In 2013 Wenn was recognised for his work in Autism and Advocacy across Australia; In 2021 Wenn was awarded the Lesley Hall prize for Lifetime Achievement as a leader in disability; In 2023 Wenn was awarded the EdX 2023 award for excellence in online teaching (Autism and mental health MOOC); the translation of autism research into practice ‘Autism CRC 2023 award’ and the Lawrence P. Kaplan US Autism award.

Register today to improve your understanding of your Autistic thinking and how to work with this neurology instead of against it. 

Please note a link to the live Zoom workshop will be emailed to you prior to the event .  

If you are unable to attend this workshop at the scheduled time; please note that it will be recorded. A recording link will be sent to all attendees after it has taken place, so that you may watch it at a time that is suitable for you. (The recording cannot be accessed using the original live Zoom workshop link.) 

Please note that we no longer receive government support which allowed us to offer our events at a significantly reduced cost. We are still committed to running events at as low of a price as we can for Autistic people and their families, but have had to increase our ticket prices to help cover our costs. Therefore, we are no longer able to offer a free ticket option at checkout. If you are facing significant financial hardship or other marginalising circumstances, and this topic is of particular relevance to you please email learning@reframingautism.org.au.