ABOUT YVONNE NEWBOLD MBE's PRESENTATION:

​

OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES OF ANXIETY AND COMMUNICATION 

​

Anxiety is a difficult concept, and one that many of us struggle to understand, and how to recognise it in our family and friends.

 

What does it look like?

 

How does it make someone feel?

 

What can cause it?

 

What can you do to help?

 

This session will help you to identify anxiety more easily. Yvonne Newbold will also share some very practical strategies that can really help someone with intense anxiety to feel better about themselves and safer in their immediate environment.

 

Yvonne will also focus on communication and some of the common pitfalls where communication can go wrong. You’ll also discover lots of ways to make communication flow much more easily and more enjoyably with your autistic friends and family members.

 

Yvonne has a very warm and inclusive approach with an ability to take complex issues and talk about them in such as way that makes them much easier to understand.

 

She will also ensure that her session is jam-packed with “Tips, Tricks and Strategies” which will give you lots of ideas to try out almost immediately.

 

The session will look at how both anxiety and communication issues can impact on behaviour, and how the key is to focus on helping children, young people and adults to feel safer and happier both in themselves and in the world around them.

 

Yvonne will also look at what you can do when your own anxiety levels are getting in the way, with some very easy “anxiety-busting” ideas that can help you feel calmer in those very tough moments too.

 

She will also talk about how all behaviour is a form of communication, and then help you to be able to interpret some of what common behaviour patterns may be trying to communicate.

 

You’ll leave this session with lots of new practical solutions that you’ll feel confident to try out. 

​

In this session you will learn: 

​

1. How the two very common challenges that many autistic people face are communication and anxiety. 

2. How to meet unmet needs.

3. Simple strategies to reduce anxieties.

4. Simple strategies to communicate more effectively. 

​

It will take a very “can do” approach with ideas to try out straight away

​

You will also learn: 

​

​

• How both anxiety and communication issues are often the underlying causes of difficult behaviour and ways that you can help. 

​

• How miscommunication can also be the source of misunderstandings, conflict, and distress. How to more easily identify why this can happen and what you can do about it. 

​

• If you ever feel anxious, fearful and out-of-your depth when someone you care about is having a meltdown, you will learn tips that you can use to feel more in control, calmer and grounded in those difficult moments when your support is so important, but you are struggling not to fall apart as well. Anxiety affects everyone, and it’s important to be able to recognise it in yourself too. 

​

• How all behaviour is a form of communication, but it can be very hard to know how to work out what someone is trying to convey to you through the way they are behaving. How to interpret this form of communication more easily and what someone you care about may be trying to tell you.

​

• How autistic people often communicate differently to the way that neurotypical people do. This can lead to communication difficulties that are not always obvious. You will better understand some of the more common difficulties that people with differing neurotypes can encounter when communicating with each other.  

​

• Why your tone of voice matters, and how to ensure you sound calm and approachable even when you’re under stress or feeling anxious yourself. 

​

• Why “no” can be a trigger word, and what else you can say instead. 

​

• To recognise some of the underlying causes of anxiety for autistic people and what you can do to help to reduce them. 

​

• How to lower both your own anxiety levels and those of the person you care about. 

​

• The ten different ways of communicating that we almost all use sometimes, and why discussing the “tough stuff” such as feelings can be very hard indeed. 

​

With this presentation you will learn: 

​

• A much greater understanding of why difficult behaviours can happen, and you’ll discover some very easy, practical ways to be able to reduce some of these behaviours by focusing on helping the person you care about to feel safer and happier. 

​

• You’ll learn what some of the common pitfalls are with communication, and how you can minimise or avoid them altogether. 

​

• Some very simple anxiety-busting techniques that can give you an instant “calm-boost” and that only take a couple of minutes to implement. 

​

• Some simple pointers and strategies that will make it easier for you to interpret what a person's behaviour is trying to tell you. 

​

• How to align your style of communication to fit someone else with a different neurotype, if you aren’t aware that they may have a different way of communicating? 

​

• Some very easy strategies that will help your voice to sound calm and friendly and will help you ensure that your voice doesn’t unconsciously carry any harsher tones that could be interpreted wrongly. 

​

• How to say “no” but without using that word, and why this is sometimes an important thing to do. 

​

• How understanding anxiety in autistic people is halfway to being able to help them to reduce their anxiety levels. You will learn three of the main causes of anxiety in autistic people, with several ideas of what you can do to overcome these particular anxiety barriers. 

 

​This presentation would benefit: 

​

• Parents who wish to better understand their child’s needs, and learn share strategies that can reduce dangerous of difficult behaviour stemming from anxieties caused by unmet needs.

• Educators and other professionals who support autistic children, adults and their families. 

​