Video Summary
1 in 4 of us will experience mental illness at some point in our lives, in many communities, this is a well-known and understood statistic however in some ethnic minority groups, mental illness is simply defined as madness. Therefore, how information is shared must be tailored to these communities, our team have spent months developing online resources tailored for the Mirpuri community living in Peterborough.
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder, defined by needs or differences in three areas
- Communication: Autism is a spectrum disorder whereby some autistic people can articulate themselves verbally whilst others remain nonverbal.
- Social interaction: Some autistic people may be socially aloof, whereas some autistic people have insight and seek friendships and social engagement but find social norm’s difficult to process or fully interpret. Whilst others appear to be happy in their own world and find little in seeking or establishing social relationships.
- Repetitive and restrictive behaviours: This can range from repetitive thoughts and narrow interests to repetitive behaviours which restrict engagement in other activities and limit the opportunities to engage in other activities. The need for daily routine and sameness feeds into repetitive and restrictive behaviours, thinking and routines.
In the Mirpuri community, there is no word to describe the above features, often these are seen as mental illness or madness. Our clip below is aimed at explaining the features of Autism Spectrum Disorder. The aim mainly is to differentiate autism spectrum disorder from mental illness, the message we hope is that Autism Spectrum Disorder is not a mental illness.
