Understanding Me, Understanding You: A Guide for Supporting Autistic People, Easing Anxiety and Promoting Mutual Understanding

Understanding Me, Understanding You is a guide for professionals working with and supporting autistic people. It promotes acceptance of difference, emphasises the importance of mutual understanding, and encourages new ways of thinking about the way people interact.. . Good communication is central to all relationships, yet the unpredictability of interpersonal exchanges can cause significant anxiety for autistic people and create a barrier to successful communication. The book's central aim is to encourage the reader to consider how they can create 'autistic spaces' where there is predictability and trust, enabling autistic individuals to engage, contribute and grow. To that end it seeks to promote mutual understanding: starting by encouraging the reader to understand themselves, their own beliefs and attitudes and the ways in which this can influence their behaviour; and then moving on to understanding another person and, in turn, helping them to understand.. . At the heart of the book is the 'Triad of Understanding', a beautifully simple model for successful communication conceived by social work practitioner Dr Jackie Robinson and three autistic co-researchers over a three-year period. Jackie successfully created a space that allowed her autistic co-researchers to flourish and achieve. This communication model underpins all three sections of the guide, which includes specific guidance for professionals in different fields and tools to facilitate the move towards mutual understanding.