Making “Mama’s Baby, Autism Maybe”: A Training Video for Practitioners
This project was inspired by a training that was conducted by Building Bridges in December 2018. The training was called Difficult Conversations and it was designed to show healthcare professionals how to approach the topic of developmental delays and Autism with parents. I participated in the training by telling my story about my son, who has autism, and the obstacles and emotions we encountered in obtaining a diagnosis. I was surprised by the feedback from the physicians. They asked me a lot of follow-up questions and were eager to learn more about what parents experience outside of their office during the journey to a diagnosis. Before I left, one doctor suggested that I “take this show on the road” because he enjoyed hearing my story and thought it was important for other health care professionals as well. One thing I realize is that my story, while unique in minor details, is not really uniqueto me. It is common in the autism community to hear parents speak of diagnosis delays due to being ignored, discriminated against or having their concerns dismissed. I wanted to give a voice to these other parents. I wanted to acknowledge their struggle and validate their feelings of frustration. Since parents don’t always have time to “take this show on the road” I wanted to create this video so our stories could be told even if we weren’t there to do it.
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