Serruys, Marc
Marc Serruys studied psychology at the University of Louvain. He is a colleague of Theo Peeters at the ‘Opleidingscentrum Autisme Theo Peeters’ (Recently the name changed to Team Vlaanderen, a division of the Fontys University The Netherlands) in Belgium. He works as an autism consultant in a residential care centre for children and adults with autism and a learning disability. For the past 15 years he has given lectures on different topics on autism in Belgium and abroad. Marc is the author of ‘Aan de rand in het midden’ (At the Edge in the Middle) on challenging behaviours in persons with autism.
Autism and Vulnerability
Autism is a condition that affects life in a very pervasive way. It does not only affect the life of the person with a ASD but also the lives of those who are close to him or her, be it as a parent or professional . From both perspectives it is an ongoing exercise in understanding the differences. In a certain way people with
autism are not fully ‘compatible’ with our ‘neurotypical’ society. But there is not much of a choice, is there? Far better than in the past, we succeed in supporting and educating people with autism and their caregivers, taking into account all the differences among people. We have developed services and our knowledge on autism is getting better day by day…but still…in the atmosphere of all the ‘more or less’ success stories, it tends to be forgotten that the vulnerability of people with autism is as pervasive as the disorder itself. Even if they have succeeded in finding the balance between their ‘own unique way of being’ and the expectations of the environment wanting them to be ‘like most of the people’, we must realize that this kind of balancing implies a high risk of
falling. If the autism goes together with learning disability, the limited number of coping strategies adds to this vulnerability and being ‘out of balance’ is a major characteristic for a lot of them. People with autism and a learning disability are at risk of ‘disappearing’ in a vast number of lectures on Asperger syndrome or high functioning people in most conferences on autism. This group needs ‘advocacy’ and that is why in this lecture we will mainly focus on them but not without making links to persons without a learning disability…really there’s not that much of a difference! This lecture emphasizes the vulnerability and the long lasting effects of ‘losing the balance’. Even in a caring environment, persons with autism may get hurt in an (invisible) emotional way and in a sense that their understanding, their ‘meaning’ of the world seems to deteriorate.
- How can we detect the ‘scars’ of those people who are scared to go on?
- What kind of behaviour may be a signal that someone is hurt?
- What are the basic principles in supporting and caring?
The fact that we are limited in our understanding of autism forces us to look in a very flexible way for answers to questions that are often hard to hear. Do we really see the effort of people on the spectrum trying to understand, trying to relate, trying to survive? Seeing this effort is often the starting point of respectful care.