Asperger Syndrome Employment Seminar

Today I presented at the Asperger Services Australia Employment Seminar a long with Professor Tony Attwood, Rachel Harris, and Alex Goodwin. There was a good turn out with approximately 60 people in attendance and the presentation has been recorded which will be made available and for more information please contact Asperger Services Australia by emailing office@asperger.asn.au or visiting their webiste http://www.asperger.asn.au/ I believe the presentation was good at highlighting the issues of unemployment in adults with Asperger Syndrome but sadly my concern is what will hopefully happen after this presentation has finished? We can only hope for some positive feedback and information awareness. I think it is unfortunate that in Queensland, Australia that there is serious lack of awareness more particularly from Education Queensland. More importantly I am concerned by my own perception that people in Australia want for Autism to go away or not deal with the very issues of the people who are on the Autistic Spectrum or for friends and families concerned. The presentation in my opinion highlighted serious issues and difficulties that exist within the employment area and hopefully in time more people will become aware and the barriers of ignorance or lack of support broken down. I spoke for 30 mins on what I consider to be the core issues of bullying, hierarchy, social skills difficulty, disability discrimination, lack of employment agencies who provide on the job support and assistance with job interviews. Also mentioned was Australia hopefully adopting a means of employing adults on the Autistic Spectrum. I think Australia needs to lift its veil of complacency and really do something about Autism and more importantly the University of Queensland can do more. I would encourage anyone interested to contact Asperger Services Australia as mentioned above for the recording of today's seminar.