Life as it is With Asperger's

The exhibition opening at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery was exciting and a larger than expected crowd came to hear Artist Camilla Connolly speak. She was thoughtful and funny and her speech was very encouraging to those who participated in the project.

The photographs by 3 of the photographers was chosen for an exhibition of works for people on the autism spectrum to be held in Ballina in May which is very exciting news.

St Ursula's has agreed to host the exhibition in their school in February and others are considering the possibility of doing this. This is wonderful news for the parents and children who participated because one of the outcomes we hoped for was that there would be recognition of the difficulties faced at school by those who have Asperger's.

There have now been six sessions of the group "Life as it is with Asperger's" and there were still so many things to talk about, including the exhibition, that we have scheduled a final session before starting the children's group on Monday 19th April. Some of the recent topics have included "The Challenges We Face" and "Things We Would Change if We had Superhuman Powers". Both the images taken by the participants and the accompanying stories are important ways in which we can increase public awareness about Asperger's Syndrome. This project has become even more significant with the release of recent statistics in the report in the Courier Mail on 10-11 April 2010 about the increasing number of children being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Our project received additional publicity on 9 April, when Dr Karen de Nooyer spoke about her research at a Community Capacity Building Workshop at USQ.

At our last meeting, there was considerable discussion about continuing to take photos which can be used in the final exhibition and there was strong interest in maintaining a parents' support group. This is one of the desirable outcomes from a photovoice project.