SNJ In Conversation: Awesome and Autistic in a post-pandemic world

with Renata Blower and Siena Castellon

Today we're bringing you another episode of SNJ In Conversation and again you can listen or watch to it below or find it on your favourite Podcast channel here (find your preferred podcast player icon below the image, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify among others). You can also click through to YouTube.

Today we're talking tips for being awesome and autistic - and it's a fascinating listen when you consider that our guest, Siena Castellon, is still only 17 years old. She has some incredible tips that not only teenage autistic girls (and boys) would find useful, but that many neurodivergent adults will too, so do give it a listen/watch

Cancelled A-Levels and planning for a new post-pandemic world

Siena is the young founder of Neurodiversity Celebration Week. She's been spending lockdown safe at home with her parents and her younger sister. But it hasn't been easy - Siena is in Year 13 and has had her A-Levels cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. It's made her radically rethink her future plans, that she had thought to be well-planned.

As well as schoolwork, Siena's been keeping busy, sending out copies of her book, The Spectrum Girl's Survival Guide: How to Grow Up Awesome and Autistic. It's really a brilliant book and Siena has many insights to offer for everyone, autistic or not, female or not.

She may only be 17, but our conversation taught Renata and me a few things we hadn't previously considered. I can't recommend it enough. I listen to podcasts and videos myself when I'm getting ready in the mornings; they can really get your brain off to a good start for the day.

Siena talks to us about life in lockdown and how the pandemic has given her pause to consider whether university really is the place for her in September. You can read Siena's columns for SNJ here.

Also read:

• Launching “SNJ In Conversation” First episode: Coronavirus and Disabled children’s mental health
• Book reviews: Kids in the Syndrome Mix and All Birds Have Anxiety
• Review: Starving the Depression Gremlin – a CBT workbook
• Book reviews: Caged In Chaos, The Boy from Hell
• Truth and Tails, four fab books for teaching children about diversity
• Book Review: Diary of a Dyslexic School Kid*
• “I’ve been bullied at school for most of my life” How Siena’s helping other autistic young people like her
• Celebrating neurodiversity: Now, more than ever, we must support one another, whatever our differences
• It’s NOT your fault: An autistic teen’s comprehensive guide to surviving being bullied

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Tania Tirraoro

Founder, Co-Director at Special Needs Jungle

Founder of Special Needs Jungle. (She/Her) Parent of two young adults with autism. New grandma. Tania, who is autistic, is a leading SEND advisor, working with the Special Education Consortium, Ofsted, and Whole School SEND. She is also an Advisory Board member of the Royal Holloway, University of London Centre of Gene and Cell Therapy and an Editorial Board member of Springer Nature Gene Therapy journal.
Tania is an experienced broadcast and print journalist & author. She also runs a PR, web & social media consultancy, SocialOro Media.
Tania is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.

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