Hello, this is Anna Kennedy, and I’m at Women’s Radio Station talking all things autism, and we’re live today, and my guest is Sienna Castellon, who’s one of my charity ambassadors, an amazing young woman, and you’ll get to hear us speak, and you’ll know the reason why. Before I go over to Sienna, I just want to talk to you a little bit about what I’ve been doing, like I always do. So, over the weekend, I have been working with a gentleman called Dominic.

Now, Dominic lives in Helston, which is in Cornwall, and I first spoke to Dominic, who almost had been about 2017, when he was going through the diagnosis process of autism. And we’ve been speaking intermittently, and then last week, I got a text message from him saying, Anna, I need your help. So, I spoke to him, and I discovered that he’d actually been sleeping outside on the bench in a park for three nights in the freezing cold last week.

Can you imagine how cold that must have been? He had no blanket. He just had the clothes that he had on. I spoke to him.

He was so stressed. He’d spoken to the council, and he had a lot of significant health issues. And he said to me that they didn’t see him as a priority.

He had a dog with him, Sid, for company. He was petrified at nighttime in the park. So, I decided I couldn’t bear to think of him sleeping on the bench at night.

So, I booked him into a hotel, and I then started fundraising on social media. Social media can be a negative experience sometimes, but can also be fantastic. And the public were amazing.

We’ve raised about £1,500 for Dominic. So, we were so excited. He couldn’t believe it.

He’s actually crying. So, I’ve been working with Annie Sands from Autism Anglia, and we have been working together. And we might have some exciting news to share with everyone very soon.

But this morning, he had a community care assessment and emergency community care assessment from social services. So, as soon as we have some news, I’ve booked him in another couple of nights until Thursday at 12 o’clock with the money that everyone’s been donated. I’m having people saying, can I book a night for him? Can I book another night for him? And I just can’t get my head around that, you know, with the health problems that he’s got, that they didn’t see him as a priority.

But then when I did some research on Cornwall, apparently it’s one of the highest homeless percentage in the UK, which I was quite surprised really. So, yeah, so I’ll let you know. As soon as I know anything, I’ll put it on social media.

So, on social media, it’s at Anna Kennedy One on Twitter, Anna Kennedy Online on Facebook, and at Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram. So, my guest today is the lovely Sienna Castellon. Now, Sienna is only 16 years old and a neurodiversity advocate and an anti-bullying campaigner.

She is autistic, dyslexic and dyspraxic and has ADHD. She has a website, qlmentoring.com, which she created to support autistic students and students with learning differences. Sienna also recently launched a neurodiversity celebration campaign that aims to encourage schools to recognise the strengths of their students with special educational needs.

Sienna has won lots of national awards for her website and advocacy, including the British Citizen Youth Award and the BBC Radio One Teen Hero Award. Sienna recently became one of my ambassadors. What I do is when I’m looking for an ambassador, most of my ambassadors are on the autism spectrum.

I sort of spot someone and then I follow them and I’ll see how they’re getting on. I’ve been following you for quite a few months and I just thought, she’s amazing. She needs to be part of Anna Kennedy Online, which you agreed, which I was so excited about.

So, hello, Sienna, and welcome to Women’s Radio Station. Hi, I’m so happy to be here. So, we’re in Covent Garden, so we met up.

We’ve had a little chat and a coffee. So, I’m going to be asking you some questions that you put to me because what I like to do with my guests is I like to ask them, what is it that you would like me to ask them so they feel comfortable in the interview and then, obviously, we’ll have a chat. So, please let me know if that’s okay with you.

When were you diagnosed as being autistic? I was diagnosed when I was 12 years old. Okay. It was in a rather roundabout way.

I was seeing a physiotherapist for my dyspraxia. Okay. And he noticed that I was very sensitive to touch.

Right. And that I was also sensitive to noise and smells. And so, he referred me to a cognitive behavioral therapist.

And when I was talking to her and describing my sensitivities, she said, well, have you thought about autism? Okay. And I went home and I researched it and I realized that a lot of the social communication issues I was having were related to autism and that, you know, I must have it. And so, I got diagnosed shortly after.

Can I just, for people who were listening in, because I have some parents that children have just recently been diagnosed. So, if someone’s heard the word dyspraxia and the condition, what is that? Could you explain it? It’s a motor coordination disorder. So, for me, I’m very kind of clumsy, terrible at sports, and I’m also rather disorganized.

Okay. So, how long did it take for you to be diagnosed? How long would you say the process was for you? Because I’ve spoken to parents where it’s been six months, a year, two years, five years, ten years. So, for you, how long did you have to wait? Well, I was unique because I got diagnosed privately.

Okay. And so, it was very soon after, it was like two weeks after I suspected my parents went to get me a diagnosis. Okay.

And had you heard of the word autism before? I’d heard of it before, but I’d heard of the stereotypes. Okay. And so, at the time, I thought it was just something that males had.

Okay. And I thought that I couldn’t have it because I wasn’t kind of severe. And my parents had the same belief.

Okay. But then, after we educated ourselves and learnt more about it, we were like, that’s something that Sienna has. So, how has having autism, would you say, helped you, having a diagnosis? Because I’ve spoken to some adults where they feel it hasn’t helped them, and they’ve hidden it.

They didn’t want to share it, especially when they’ve gone for, say, a position within a company. I would say, like my son Patrick, when he first applied for a job, he thought he wouldn’t put it on his application. Because he was worried about being discriminated against because of past experiences.

But then, once he was in the position, he then shared it with them. So, how is it, would you say it’s helped you quite quickly? Or did it take a little bit of time? Did people judge you? Did they see you differently? Did you lose friends? Having the diagnosis for me was really helpful. It changed the way I perceived myself.

Okay. Before, I would get very frustrated and angry, and I’d be like, you know, why do I have these sensory issues? And I would push through them. You know, if I had a shirt that I was wearing that was uncomfortable, I would just be like, well, I have to be like everyone else, and I’m not going to cause a scene over this.

But then, after my diagnosis, I always went more accepting. Okay. And that change in myself kind of changed the way that people perceived me.

Okay. I became a lot more confident. And so, I actually found that I gained friends after my autism diagnosis.

Oh, that’s great. That’s great to hear. Because I have spoken to autistic adults where they’ve actually lost friends.

I’ve spoken to parents, which, sadly, they’ve had friends in the past, and then they’ve ignored them, or they’ve seen them on the street, and they’ve walked across the road. And I just can’t get my head around something like that. It’s just like, why aren’t you supporting them? They haven’t changed.

They’re just the same. So, yeah, I just don’t really get why people are like that. So, you said you gained friends.

So, was that at school? Was that within the community? That was at school. That was in the community. That was like, I would go away to these summer programs.

Okay. And I would have all these friends there because I was just accepting. Okay.

And there wasn’t that kind of self-doubt and like self-questioning. I was just like, you know, this is me. Okay.

I may be a bit socially awkward, but you just have to take it or leave it. So, if you were to give advice to a girl, say, 15 or a boy, 14, 15 years old teenager, because obviously, there can be quite difficult years for young people, what advice would you give them if they’ve been given a diagnosis of autism? Well, I would say that autism is a spectrum and everyone who has autism is completely different. And so, you’ve got to learn how it affects you.

And, you know, you need to take consideration. So, if you find that your sensory processing disorder means that you are hypersensitive, just make adaptations in your life and that will make it so much easier for you. Can we talk a little bit about sensory processing conditions? Again, remember that we might have some parents that are listening in and it’s all very new to them.

So, they’re trying to educate themselves. So, sensory processing condition, how does it affect you? So, I’m hypersensitive. So, what does that mean? I’m very sensitive to smells, to touch, to lights, to sounds.

But you can also be undersensitive, where you don’t process things in that way and you’re kind of less sensitive to those stimuli. Okay. Yeah.

Well, my son Angelo is very much like you. He, say, for example, we might be going for a walk and we might have done that route so many times that then if it’s a really, really sunny day, it’s almost like we’re walking the same route the first time. So, what he’ll do is he’ll get a hold of my arm and it’s almost like, how can I say, as if he’s going to be falling off a cliff, I can’t really describe it any other way.

And it’s because the sun’s shining and it might, I’m not sure if it’s shining from a different angle, but it just affects him in that way. Smells, as well, can affect my son and my eldest son, Patrick. Touch.

I always remember that when Angelo was first diagnosed, before that, till he was about two years old, he had no problem with being kissed, with being hugged, as babies do. But then, for some reason, he didn’t want to be touched. He didn’t want to be held.

And as a mom, that is quite a hard thing to take. He was fixated on patterns on the wallpaper, foods. He used to squeeze everything before he ate it.

So, say, for example, he was eating chips, he would flick the end of each chip and then pop it into his mouth. My son Patrick didn’t like certain foods touching each other on the plate. So, say, for example, he might have had sausage and chips.

The sausages must not touch the chips. Things like that. So, how are you with foods? Are you quite sensitive to smells? I’ve seen some children and adults where they sniff the food before they actually eat it or lick it.

Is there anything like that that you might do? I have certain foods that I absolutely avoid. For some reason, dried tomatoes are terrible. Even thinking about them stresses me out in flour.

I hate when you have that bread that has flour on the top of it. My son is coffee. We drink a lot of coffee in our house and he can’t stand the smell of coffee.

My husband might say to me, Anna, do you want a coffee? He’s up the stairs and in his room. I don’t want to smell that coffee. We’re coming to the end of the first half.

We’re on women’s radio station talking all things autism. My guest is the lovely Sienna Castellon. If you’re interested in asking questions, you can contact me on Anna Kennedy Online.

I can share the information with Sienna. The charity website is www.annaKennedyOnline.com. If you want to talk to us on Twitter or social media, what’s your Twitter handle? QL Mentoring. QL Mentoring.

Are you on Facebook? No, I’m not yet. How about Instagram? Yes, I’ve got my Neurodiversity Celebration Week on Instagram. They can’t contact you, is that okay? Yeah, that’s great.

Okay, so we’re at women’s radio station, and we’re live, and we’re in Covent Garden, and it’s www.womensradiostation.com. If you want to follow them on Twitter, it’s at Women’s Radio Station, spelled S-T-N. Welcome to Women’s Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. This is Women’s Radio Station.

You’re listening to Agile Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality. It’s Anna Kennedy talking all things autism, and my guest today is Karen Nye. Welcome to Future Classical Women Awards, with me, Stefania Passamante, on Women’s Radio Station.

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Radio advertising is the most cost-effective way of reaching a huge audience globally. Moreover, our sponsorship and advertising packages can be tailored to your needs, whether it be a product or brand service you’re looking to promote. If you are interested in sponsoring or advertising, please contact me on 07 956 371 483 or alternatively zm at womensradiostation.com. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy, and we’re at Women’s Radio Station, Voice of Women Worldwide, and we’re live, and my guest today is Sienna.

Sienna is going to be speaking at our Anna Kennedy Online charity expo, and that is at Bruno University, and I think we’re in our fourth year now. So other speakers that we have is on PDA. We have Chris Bonnello, who is an autistic teacher, and he’s also an author and has a Facebook group that’s called Autistic and Not Weird and has over 100,000 followers.

We also have Alexandra Besta, which is one of the previous guests who is going to be talking about autism and nutrition. Matty Street, also another one of my ambassadors, who’s on the spectrum. He’s CEO of his own company at 22 years old.

He was diagnosed with autism, Asperger’s syndrome and dyslexia and dyspraxia, was always told he would never amount to anything, and now he employs 46 people. Such an inspirational young man. So Sienna, you were BBC radio team star, so tell me a little bit about that experience and how did that come about? So it was an amazing experience.

I got to meet Little Mix. But a lot of girls were jealous. Yeah, they were so nice in person.

Oh, were they? Oh, lovely. And we had our own dressing room, all the teen heroes. Oh, did you? And they would just come and they would say hi to us and they would have a discussion, and then it was so nice.

And I also got to have a surprise, so I went to Harry Potter, one of our studios. Oh, wow. And I was surprised by Callum Turner, who stars in the Crimes of Grindelwald movie.

So are you a Harry Potter fan? I’m a very big Harry Potter fan. I’ve loved it since I was like 10. So you’ve read all of the books? I’ve read all of the books, and there was a time where I knew all of the spells.

And your favourite character? Probably Severus Snape. Okay, so what is radio team star? What does that mean? So if someone was to say to you, so what did that mean for you? Did somebody nominate you? How does it work? Yeah, so my mum nominated me for the award. Okay.

And it’s just a young person who’s kind of made an impact on their community. Okay. So if somebody’s interested in this year, so if they can find it online, if they might think that somebody is, you know, they would like to nominate them.

Yeah, so look up BBC Teen Hero Online and you can nominate somebody. Okay, that’s good to know. So I hear, because we were chatting before, that you are in the middle of writing a book, and you’ve recently signed with Jessica Kingsley Publishing.

So tell me a little bit about that and what’s the experience like of writing a book? It is a surreal experience. I never thought that I would be in a situation where at like 16, having a book deal and, you know, sitting in my kitchen, trying to like write and thinking of different ideas and different chapters, but I’m writing with Survival Guide for autistic girls. Okay, so when did you start and when did you know that you got the deal? I started around like December right now.

Okay, so it’s quite new. Yeah. And how long have they given you to write the book, or is it down to you? It’s kind of down to me, so I’m hoping to have it done this year.

So how are you fitting in all the things that you do, writing a book, going to school or college, so are you finding it that you are able to manage your time? I mean, it’s crazy. I’ll like go to school, I go to this math school and I’m doing math all day, and then I’ll come home and start writing my book. And, you know, one day, Temple Grandin called me, who’s my idol.

She agreed to write the forward after she read the book, and so I have this, for the book, I have this all autistic girl team. I have Bex Burgess, who’s going to be illustrating Temple Grandin on the forward, and so she called me, and we had this amazing discussion about how autism has kind of impacted our lives and I’ve encouraged people with learning differences to kind of pursue their interests, so that was amazing. I met Temple Grandin who, I think it must have been about eight or nine years ago, might have even been longer, and I went to a conference where she was speaking and we were having lunch, and she stood at one end of the room and I was stood at the other end of the room, and she was looking a little bit uncomfortable, and then all of a sudden, she just marched across the room and stood by me and said, I’d like to stand here and eat my lunch.

I said, that’s okay, and I could see she didn’t want to talk. I think she was a little bit overwhelmed by everything, so I just remember thinking, this is really surreal. I’m still next to Temple Grandin.

We’re not actually saying anything, but she’s just eating lunch, and she’s been about five, ten minutes, and then off she went, so I thought, goodbye, so that was good. So do you know what the title of your book’s going to be? I’m thinking of Born Offbeat. Oh, okay.

Quite like that. Born Offbeat. I remember when, oh, I think it was 2008 when I started on my book, and I felt like it was a little bit like, I was going through counselling because trying to remember everything from 1997 when both my boys were diagnosed and then thinking about my past when I was younger, it was quite hard, and then because obviously at that time, I was setting up Hillingdom on a school, and my boys weren’t at school, so I was taking them with me every day, and we had teachers that were popping in for a few hours a day to help me while we were setting up the school, and what we decided to do in the end was get a ghostwriter, so I made great friends with someone called Ivan Sage, and he came to meet me, and then he said to me, Anna, whenever you can remember anything, he said, just get a dictaphone and speak into it, and that’s what I did.

He said, or even if you’re emailing people, and all of a sudden a thought pops in your mind, just email it to me, even if it’s a couple of sentences, and that’s what I did, and we did it in about six months, and then sort of looking for old photographs, all those sort of things, so it was actually quite scary thing to do, and I remember when I got the book, it was posted to me, it was through John Blake Publishing, and people keep saying, oh, when are you going to write another book? I just thought, oh, I’d like to, but I’m just so consumed with everything that I do at the moment, but I remember when I got the book, I was running around the room with it, thinking, oh, this is my life in this book, it’s like, it’s weird, and then I did a talk on Radio 4 in the morning with Jafir Spin was speaking with me at the time, and I was talking about my book and about my experience, and apparently the switchboard was getting jammed with people ringing in, wanting to either ask me questions or share a similar experience, and my book went to number one on Amazon within like the first couple of hours, and I was jumping up and down, going, hey, it was weird, but I’m glad I did it, and yeah, I just, but I’d like to do something else a little bit, because obviously it stopped when I got the keys, and you know, for the school, and all the rest of it, so I’ve done so much since then. So, what motivated you to become an anti-bullying campaigner? Well, I’ve been bullied at school for most of my life. At times, I’ve had to leave schools, sometimes mid-term, mid-year.

I’ve left three schools because of severe bullying, and it really has a devastating effect on you, like physically, emotionally, mentally, and also an effect on like your family. Personally, I’ve been diagnosed with bullying-related PTSD. So, if you don’t mind me asking, what sort of things was it? Girls? Was it boys? Was it written? How was it? Well, when I was younger, it was very more like physical, and it was more kind of taunts and rumours, but then as I got older, the kids got more manipulative, and they kind of figured out that if they were to lie and tell stories to teachers, that I wouldn’t really be able to defend myself, because in part, due to my autism, I can be rather stoic, and so I would go in to talk to like the head of pastoral care, and I would say, you know, this terrible thing happened to me, and it really upset me, and she’d be like, well, if it upset you, you’d be crying.

Oh, dear. Not good. Yeah, I can’t bear bullying.

I just, I can’t bear it. I was bullied as a child, but not for reasons being, it was to do with like, because my parents are Italian, so I used to get, my surname was Samaroni, so they used to say, Anna Samaroni, he’s made of macaroni, things like that, and it’s just like when you’re a child, and then all these stuff, because I used to have quite long hair, and it was in a ponytail, and they used to pull my hair, and I used to go to a convent, and there were nuns were there, some of them were not very nice at all, and they used to pull my hair as well, so it was just like, and they used to be punishment then, so if you were talking, you would get hit with a ruler across your knuckles, and I remember, say for example, that if you were, might be in a classroom, and somebody might have been acting out, and then if nobody owned up, everybody had the punishment, so we used to have to write lots of lines, so things like, someone might have thrown a rubber at the math teacher, say for example, so we had to write a hundred times, rubber’s rubbed, they do not fly. It’s quite funny now when you think about it, but you know, it’s not pleasant, and my son Patrick, he got bullied at school, and he used to come home and say, Mommy, what does cuckoo brain mean? All those sort of things, and it’s just like, I just don’t understand why people are nasty to each other, it’s just, yeah, so that’s why we started, give us a break, which is the anti-bullying campaign, and we were working with the NSPCC quite a few years ago, and then the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

So, do you go into schools to speak about bullying? I’m trying to. I think that’s a good idea. I’m part of the Diana Award, and so I really want to kind of change the narrative, and I want to also talk about disability-related bullying, because that’s something that hasn’t really been approached as part of it.

No, yeah, we’ve got a couple of our ambassadors like Ryan, he was given the Diana Award, and then Calvin, he was also given the Diana Award, so that was, it was a really, really lovely day where everybody, I think one of them met Charles Spencer, it was great, so I think campaigning for anti-bullying is a must. So, what’s the next stage for you with your anti-bullying campaign? You’ve got anything planned? I am doing an Always Be Kind campaign. So what’s that then? So, I have this Instagram account, Always Be Kind, and what I do is I wear a t-shirt that says, you know, always be kind, young people can change the world.

I have one that says, not all disabilities are visible. So is this something you’ve created yourself, or is it something that you’ve found online? It’s something that I’ve created myself, and so I’ll go, I was in New York, and so I was in Times Square, and I have a photo of like that shirt in Times Square, and the idea is you can be kind no matter where you are. Kindness, I always say, is free.

Yeah. It’s just like, why can’t people be kind to each other? There’s a lot of negativity. Even like when I turn on the news now, it’s all full of negative stuff.

It’s like the stabbings in London. I just can’t get my head around it. I just don’t understand why people are so nasty to each other, and also social media can be quite, you know, it’s not a pleasant place to be, especially on Twitter.

It can be quite a negative experience, but also it can be a great experience where people can network, share experiences, and that’s, for me, that’s what it’s about. So we’re at women’s radio station, Voice of Women Worldwide. We’re live with my lovely guest, Sienna Castellon, who’s got a neurodiversity campaign that she’s going to be talking to us about very soon.

So again, if people want to contact you, where can they reach you? I’m QL Mentoring on Twitter and QL Mentoring on Instagram. So have you got a website? Yes, I’ve got a website, www.qlmentoring.com. Okay. Thank you very much.

And again, if you want to contact the charity website, it’s www.annakennedyonline.com or leave a message, 01895-540-187. Women’s radio station is a fresh, new broadcasting platform driven by love and passion. Connecting women around the world in a global network is all about diversity.

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For more information, visit womensradiostation.com Hello, this is Anna Kennedy at All Things Autism. Let me get my teeth in. Women’s radio station, voice of women worldwide.

A couple of days ago, I saw a post and we had one of our mums as my guests from the charity and she was talking to me about her son, Callum. And Callum was an orphan from Russia and she adopted her son. So just before Christmas, we were chatting in the studio here and Callum is a young man who loves street dance and he applied for Autism’s Got Talent and that was about three years ago and when I saw him audition, I thought, oh, he’s got to be on the stage, he’s amazing.

So he came along, he danced for me and since then, he’s been dancing at some of my events. He got a scholarship at Pineapple Performing Arts and he’s just really, really thrived. He’s danced like so many different places.

I’ve even seen him dancing in Covent Garden with the buskers. He’s just amazing, just loving. And it’s his birthday and I saw a post and apparently he said to his mum, I don’t want a lot of presents for my birthday.

What I want you to do is raise money for Anna Kennedy online because she’s changed my life and the charity has changed my life and I just got, I’m getting a bit emotional now. I got really emotional about that and I just thought, what a lovely thing to do. So I just want to say thank you to Callum and I’m really proud of you, what you do.

He’s also been supporting our anti-bullying campaign. He’s created videos. So thank you, Callum, for that.

So Sienna, what keeps you motivated? So obviously, you’ve been through bullying. So how do you keep yourself motivated and sort of keep going? Oftentimes, it’s the comments that I’ll get through my website. Okay.

So I’ll get people who will email me and who will say, you know, your website has helped me, you know, come to terms with my autism. Okay. Or sometimes I’ll get parents who will say, you know, I have a daughter with autism who’s being bullied and I read your article on bullying on your website and now, you know, my child’s in a better situation.

I understand their autism more and having, you know, comments like that, it really makes me want to continue what I’m doing. That’s great. I was just saying while we were off air that there’s a postcard sitting directly behind Sienna on the wall and it says only you can make it happen and that’s just so apt for you because I think I’m watching you and I just thought this lady woman is going to be amazing.

I don’t know what you’re going to achieve but I just think that nothing’s going to stop you. You’re quite driven. You’re quite like me.

I’m quite driven. But, you know, if I was your mum, I’d be really, really proud of what you’re doing. Thank you so much.

Thank you. So what advice would you give to parents of autistic students about being bullied either in schools or either primary school, secondary school, a college or maybe even university? I mean, the biggest one that I’ve had to learn the hardware is that schools will lie to you. What do you mean? Well, I’ll come home and I’ll tell my parents, you know, this happened, you know, this kid hit me and this kid said something and a teacher will have seen it.

Okay. And they’ll go in and the staff will say, that’s not happening. Sienna’s making it up.

She’s doing it for attention. With my sister, she was in a classroom and this kid would scratch her. And she would come home with like these bleeding scratch marks and the teacher said she’s scratching herself.

I can’t believe that. The teacher would see this kid scratch her and it just shocked me. And I never, like to this day, I’m still in disbelief that teachers would do that.

And so I always tell parents, you’ve got to trust your kid. And if your kid tells you that something’s going wrong and that their room is being spread and that they’re being attacked at school, you just got to believe them and you’ve got to go into the school and be a united France and just know that like schools will laugh. You talked briefly about your sister.

How old is your sister, if you don’t mind me asking? And what’s your relationship like with your sibling? So my sister is 12 years old. Okay. She hasn’t been diagnosed with autism, but we believe that she has it.

She has under sensitivity. Okay. What does that mean? So I’m with touch and sounds and senses.

I’m very sensitive to them. But my sister is the opposite. She’s under sensitive.

So when we were growing up, we would have these interesting fights where I would say, oh my God, mom, don’t touch me. Don’t hug me. And then Kira would be like, mom, can you hug me more? And then my mom would forget, like which one wanted what? You’re a poor mom.

And she would come and she would give me like a really tight hug. Yeah. Thinking that I was Kira and I would like freak out.

And we would be in situations where like, we would be going outside in the cold and I would be wearing like five layers because I really feel the cold and I’m really sensitive. And my sister doesn’t feel cold. So she’ll be out in a sun dress.

I like this dress. And so my mom’s getting these weird looks like, why is your kid out like that when it’s snowing? I know so many children that are like that. Like my son, Patrick, it’s like, it’s freezing and he’s walking around in a pair of shorts.

And I’m just thinking, aren’t you cold? But it’s just like, so did you both go to the same school? Did you look out for your sister? How was that? There were times when we went to the same school. Okay. But because of bullying, we had to split up a lot.

Because, you know, we would be in a situation where she’s doing okay at school. But I have a difficult year group and so I had to move. Okay.

What would you like to do? So see if you can see yourself in 10 years time. What do you think you would like to do? Because of my autism, I have this passion for math. And it’s almost like a special interest.

I’ll be up till 2 a.m. doing my math. But I love, and I’m in a math school now. So what does that mean in a math school? What do you do? What, obviously, maths? It’s one of two schools in the country.

So King’s University started a sixth form math school. And so what we do there is like just, so everyone does the same A levels, maths for the maths and physics. Okay.

And so we’re all like these math nerds. And like during our breaks, we’ll be talking about math and physics and kind of the environment. And how many in your group? It’s 60 in a year.

Okay. All right then. Well, I didn’t know that those thought schools existed.

So that’s interesting for me. I’m really rubbish at math. So please don’t ask me anything about math because that was a subject that I used to find really difficult.

And another subject I found really difficult was geography. And that was because my teacher bullied me in geography. She was just like, and then I used to switch off.

And I thought, I’m not listening to you because you’re not a very nice person. So yeah, I think that’s probably why I have difficulty using sat-navs and because when she used to talk about coordinates and all those sort of things, I used to switch off. I used to think I’m not talking to you.

I’m not listening to you because she used to speak to me not very nice at all. And I just couldn’t understand the reason why. So yeah.

So you’ve got a neuro diversity celebration week coming up, which is May the 13th to May the 17th. And I’m pleased to say that Anna Kennedy online is on board. So tell me a little bit about the neuro diversity celebration week and why did it come about? So my experience with my learning differences at school has been like very negative.

You know, teachers would say, because of your dyslexia, you could never be a writer. Because of your dyspraxia, you could never do sport. And it just, since the school day revolves around like reading and writing and spelling, you often might put down and made to feel like the academic environment isn’t right for you.

You know what? I just can’t get my head around that because teachers are supposed to be there to motivate you, not demotivate you. And they’re supposed to be there to help you. I’ve heard this so many times and it just angers me.

I know. And teachers can have such an impact. Like I just had one teacher who said to me, your writing’s nice.

And that changed my life. And that’s the reason why I have this website and I’m putting my writing out there. Yeah.

Because it kind of put that passion back into me because before it was just like you can’t write because you make the occasional spelling mistake. Oh, my word. I went to, I recently visited a school in Sutton and I spent the whole day there and I went from classroom to classroom.

And what I noticed was, and it was mainly boys there, there was one girl. And the handwriting was beautiful. And that was something I’ve commented straight away.

I just said, your handwriting is beautiful. It’s better than mine. But it was just like something that I noticed.

And there was one little boy there that he was quite, he hadn’t been there very long and he was quite withdrawn. And then as soon as I praised him and praised his handwriting, he just went and then he started talking to me about Marvel and all the things he was interested in. And he just shows you just one little comment.

Like you said, your handwriting is nice. And I said, your handwriting is really neat. It’s beautiful.

He just, you could see the whole, even his whole body from being rounded shoulders just opened up out. And I just thought, you know, yeah. So, and sorry, I’m interrupting you.

So tell me about Neurodiversity Celebration Week. So tell me a little bit more. So you talked about learning differences.

So some people might not know what learning differences are. So what are they, would you say? So learning differences is like dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD. And so like this Neurodiversity Celebration Week came about because I’m trying to flip the narrative from focusing on the negatives of these learning differences to focusing on the positives.

So to kind of like what you gave that kid a compliment just to say, you know, people with dyslexia, their strong suits may not be in spelling, but they do have other strong suits and there are many incredibly successful dyslexia. And with autism, for instance, 70% of Silicon Valley is autistic. Yeah, I’ve been reading about that.

And so to say, if you’re autistic, you can’t have a career, that’s wrong. They shouldn’t say that anywhere about any disability. So how has the feedback been since you, when did you start it? I can’t remember now.

I started it before Christmas. Yeah, before Christmas. It’s been amazing.

I have 85 schools subscribed and 51,600 students taking part. Excellent. And I’ve got schools in America.

I have one in Qatar and in Australia. So it’s become a worldwide thing. So if people are interested, how would they look on information? So if you go to www.neurodiversity-celebration-week.com, you can sign up.

So what do you have to do to sign up? So if you were a school, you sign up and you just pledge to take part in this Neurodiversity Celebration Week and you can download posters and resources from my website to help you with the week, which is May 13th to May 17th. So who created the posters and was that you? Yeah, I created the posters so they kind of have famous people with learning differences just to kind of highlight that you can still be successful. Okay.

Okay. So that’s really quite exciting for you then. So have you had anybody that, say for example, big organisations that have said, oh, right, this idea, we want to, about the Department for Education? Well, I’ve had the ADHD Foundation.

Oh, yeah. I’ve had your Anne Kennedy online. I’ve had the British Dyslexia Association.

Okay. Quite big organisations then. And that’s quite exciting.

I’m really excited about it. Yeah. So I wish you all the best for that.

And obviously, I’ll publicise it as much as I can. It’s on our charity website. And obviously, I try and retweet lots of things that you do.

I am quite well-known for retweeting information. So if you want me to share stuff, I’m quite happy to do that. So again, just to remind you, on Twitter, it’s at AnneKennedy1, Instagram at AnneKennedyOBE.

And the charity website is AnneKennedyOnline. And on Facebook, it’s AnneKennedyOnline. So we’re at Women’s Radio Station, Voice of Women Worldwide.

And we’re talking all things autism. My guest today is Sienna Castellon. And we just have one more quarter to go.

So bye-bye, everyone. Welcome to Women’s Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. This is Women’s Radio Station.

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So we’re going to be talking about a controversial play called All in a Row. And before we do that, I just wanted to remind everyone of Autism’s Got Talent. And if you’re interested in sending in auditions, we’re actually auditioning for St. Ives, which is in quite a few months’ time.

But if you’re interested and you might like to enter your nomination, please do. And again, it’s www.annakennedyonline.com. So you could be a singer, you could be a dancer, a musician, a magician, might have a band, or you might like to sing in a duo, or even artwork, poetry, whatever it may be, just send in your audition and we’ll be choosing 10 people to be performing at St. Ives in a fantastic theatre that we went to last year. So All in a Row is by Alex Oates, and it’s directed by Dominic Shaw.

And the starring people are Charlie Brooks and Simon Limking with Hugh Purves and Michael Fox. So I didn’t know anything about the play at all until one of our ambassadors contacted me and said, Anna, would you mind speaking to one of the cast members of All in a Row? So I said, OK, I thought, well, what is All in a Row? So they told me a little bit about it. So I said, yeah, sure, I’ll speak to, it was actually Charlie Brooks.

So I rang her, so we were having a conversation. She was telling me a little bit about the play and about all the controversy that was surrounding the play. And I thought, well, I’m sorry.

I didn’t know anything about it. I’ll definitely look it up. And as we were chatting, she said, oh, we’re in the middle of technical rehearsals.

So she said, would there be any chance that you could come and see the tech rehearsals either tonight or tomorrow morning because those are the last two days? And I said, oh, it’s a bit short notice. But I said, I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll get back to you. And then she said she would speak to the producers and the director.

So I spoke to a few people. Obviously, it was a bit short notice. I couldn’t go there in the evening because I needed to arrange care for my son.

So I said, I’ll come on the Saturday morning. So I asked a few of our charity champions to come along. And I asked a couple of our autistic ambassadors, but it was too short notice because they lived too far away.

So we went along to the play, and it wasn’t actually in the theater. It was just in a room with a sofa and a couple of chairs. And I could see they were very nervous about performing.

And so I sat down. And what I had seen previous, because I’ve obviously done a bit of research before I went to it, was the pictures of the gray puppet that seemed to be causing a lot of controversy. And I must admit that when I saw the photograph, I thought, oh, what’s that? What’s that supposed to be? And I thought, it looks a bit scary looking.

But I thought, I’ll go and see the play. So when I walked into the room, as did Tally, as did Joe, we looked straight away for this puppet. And I thought it was a full puppet from head to toe, but it was just the top half.

So basically, it was the head. And the head you actually slot your hand in. And then there was just the torso, which is attached to the body of the puppeteer.

And then obviously, they hold onto their hands. So when I looked at it, I thought, oh, it doesn’t look as bad as it did in the photograph, but I’m going to watch the play. So I sat down.

I started watching the play. It was very powerful. Charlie Brooks is amazing as the mother.

She’s 100% that really goes for it. The puppeteer, I was very impressed with the way that he was using the puppet. After I’d been to see the play, and when it finished, we gave our feedback.

Now, it really affected Tally, who was one of the charity volunteers that came along, because she’d just been through the experience of her son going to residential school. And it was a tough decision to make. And the play is about, more or less, the mom and dad the night before that their son is going away to residential school.

And it’s 200 miles away. It’s all those feelings of like, you know, you’ve failed, all those sort of things. And it’s actually quite powerful.

And the carer is there as well. So they’re sort of part of the play. So I went along last night to see it actually in the theater.

So there were some protesters outside. It was a very peaceful protest, very respectful. They just gave us, like a leaflet, I would say, as we went in.

And then we watched the play. I actually sat at the front. I took my husband and Joe came along.

I did ask a couple of autistic adults to come, but they decided that they didn’t want to come to the event. They did want to see the play, but they were very worried about the people outside that were protesting. And actually thinking about it, they could have come.

You know, it was very peaceful. I think they just thought it was going to be, I don’t know, aggressive. I don’t know, but it was nothing like that at all.

So it’s a shame really that they didn’t get to see the show, but I saw it in a different light. I was very near to the puppeteer and I was watching him and I thought they didn’t really need to have the puppet. They could have had just the young man play the character.

So as I say, Charlie was a hundred percent brilliant performance. I just don’t know how she does that performance. Every night, it must just really take so much out of her.

So tell me a little bit about what’s been going on in the background with reference to all in a row and why autistic people are so upset. So I was actually part of the protest outside the theater. It was my first protest, mainly because of my sensory issues.

I don’t really get involved. Were you a bit nervous? I was really nervous going in, but it was fine. You know what? I was really respectful and they just handed leaflets out to everybody.

It was just not, I don’t know what I was expecting myself, but I think it was the buildup to it that people, imaginations sort of run away with them. But no, it was absolutely fine. Anyway, carry on.

Yeah. The main reason that we were protesting, I mean, objection was the fact that this 11 year old boy was portrayed in such a negative light. He had this nightmare inducing gray puppet thing and it was tucked into this man’s pants.

And all the other actors are human. And the only person who’s depicted as this like monstrosity puppet thing is the autistic boy. And I felt like oftentimes you don’t get the perspective of a carer or someone with autism or a parent of an autistic child depicted in media.

And so when you have the opportunity to do that, you should do it in a sensitive light. And with this, they portrayed a group of vulnerable young people in a very kind of negative light and it perpetuates those stereotypes. For me, I think what was good was that it highlighted profoundly, people who are profoundly more affected like my son, because a lot of the shows like the A word, like the curious incidents of the dog, they portray children and adults that are on the upper end of the spectrum, if you like, where people like Angelo, my youngest son, and Taryn, which is Tally’s boy, parents, I always look at the Twitter feed to see when a show’s on.

So say, for example, the A word was on and then there was a lot of parents saying, what about my son? My son doesn’t present, his autism doesn’t present itself in that way as that particular character. And they feel that they’ve been let down by the system. So in a way, I was glad that they were portraying the children that are more profoundly affected, if you like.

And also on how it can have the toll of parents thinking that they haven’t done a good job because their son is going to residential school. I think listening to the story, there was quite a few inaccuracies in there about the system and the way it works. And that’s the way my husband looked at it, being a barrister.

So he was saying, no, it wouldn’t work like that. I said, you’ve got to remember it’s a play. So I think there’s some inaccuracies there.

But it did show how it affects a husband and wife, the lack of sleep, all those different emotions that parents are going through as well, that their son’s going to go to 200 miles away from home, which is a long way. I think if the support had been put in correctly at the beginning, it probably wouldn’t have come to that. But it just shows the emotions that they had.

And like mum and dad arguing because they were looking for someone to blame, but there’s no one to blame. It’s just that, you know, that’s how it presents itself in that. And also I spoke to Alex, who was the writer.

And this play is actually based on someone he cared for. And he asked permission. And they said it was fine.

They read the script. And I didn’t know that. I only found that out last night.

And he said that the mum is actually coming to see the play on the very last day. So most of the storyline is about a young man that he worked with. And I was asked on Twitter about relaxed performances.

And they said, oh, there’s only one night. So I said, I will ask for you if they can do more nights. So they said if there was demand that they would do an extra night.

But I spoke to Alex yesterday and I said, oh, how is the relaxed performance going? You know, how are the tickets sales? He said, we’ve hardly sold any. So he’s really quite surprised that they’ve hardly sold any tickets. So they said that if there was demand, they would actually put on another relaxed performance show.

And I think relaxed performance show, because I’ve been to relaxed performance pantomime. They’re just fantastic. All the family can go together with their siblings.

We’ve had such positive experiences from relaxed performances. So anything else that you want to share about what the autism community were feeling? Well, a particular objection that I had was when the carer referred to the severely autistic child as an animal who was mistakenly reincarnated into human form. Yeah.

The dad in the scene actually said, don’t ever say that again when he went out there. It was just that it was something that I thought that he’d had. But then he realized after he’d said it, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

And the dad just jumped down his throat and said, don’t even say that. I don’t even know what you’re thinking about. Because obviously, you didn’t see the play.

So that’s what was said at that time. And then he actually said it to the mom. And the mom said, don’t even say that.

I don’t even know what you’re thinking about. That’s just like, don’t even suggest that. Yeah, but I feel like just if you’re going to have a relaxed performance and you’re going to have autistic people there watching it, it would just be so upsetting, even if they shut it down.

But I believe that it was entertaining the way that they shut it down. We’ve actually run out of time. I just feel like we could just talk and talk.

But what I’m going to ask Sienna to do is write an article about today. And so you can share more of your thoughts within the article. And then we will publish it on Anna Kennedy Online.

I’d like to thank you very much. I want to talk to you more. But we’ve run out of time.

Everybody says that it just goes so quickly, which it does. But thank you very much, Sienna, for coming along to Women’s Radio Station. If you’re interested in being one of my guests, please contact me at AnnaKennedyOnline, which is www.annaKennedyOnline.com. And if they’re interested in finding out more about what you do, what’s the website? www.qlmentoring.com. And if you want to contact you on Twitter? QLmentoring.

And then Instagram is at qlmentoring. OK, I’d like to wish you the best look in all the world. I think what you’re doing is amazing.

And I’m so proud to have you as our ambassador. And I will see you probably next at the Expo, which is very, very soon. So we’re here at Women’s Radio Station.

All things autism and we’re live. And thank you very much. Goodbye.

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