Autism, anxiety, and demand avoidance: National Conference

Autism, Anxiety and Demand Avoidance: a national conference of interest to individuals, families and health and education professionals.

Dublin City University, in collaboration with Caerus Education and Prism DLR, hosted the first national conference focusing on autism and extreme anxiety demand avoidance.

Keynote speakers included Harry Thompson and Dr. Judy Eaton, together with testimony, guidance and discussion from experts by experience, and professionals, with half of the presenters being members of the autistic community.

This conference presented findings from the Irish Research Council funded national study, Mapping Experiences of Pathological Demand Avoidance in Ireland, conducted by Dr Alison Doyle and Dr. Neil Kenny. This study found that young people and adults with the presentation of autism face significant barriers to access appropriate assessment and support, with families, adults and life partners significantly vulnerable to isolation and lack of service provision. Dr Kenny & Dr Doyle worked with members of the autistic community, clinican, educator and parents to develop a suite of evidence informed advice documents to provide access to information regarding autism and extreme anxiety demand avoidance. The range of advice documents were developed across the range of stakeholder to provide evidence informed advice regarding appropriate support strategies, available resources, and best practice specific to each of the domains.

The suite of evidence informed advice documents are available [here] along with the findings of the study.