Emily Price - Autistic SLT

I'm an Autistic Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) based in Manchester, UK, and Co-Founder of Divergent Perspectives; a training provider delivering workshops to professionals in how to support Autistic children, young people, and adults. I advocate and campaign for radical changes in therapy practices for through public speaking, training, and education. I use my lived experience of being Autistic to inform my work in addition to my clinical expertise as a SLT to guide my work, makes me uniquely positioned to make a difference.

Autistic children do not have social impairments. I don't provide interventions based on behaviourism and the social-deficit theory of Autism; these practices are rooted in flawed theories and outdated research about Autistic people. We now have research which shows the opposite; Autistic people have a diversity in social intelligence and communicate just as effectively with each other as when neurotypicals interact with each other. As a Neurodivergent-Affirming SLT I do not provide Social Skills Training. We know that these interventions are designed to teach Autistic children to mask and perform a set of socially expected behaviours built upon neuronormative norms of attention and communication.