A Co Down woman has opened up on how she is battling the stereotypes surrounding autism.
Rebecca McCullough is the founder of Eden Consultancy NI which is based in Belfast and launched in October 2021.
It "works at equipping those who are working with or raising children with neurodiversity needs such as autism and ADHD".
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Some of the work they do is raising awareness and they say they are "passionate about changing the world around the child".
Part of this is through the power of social media, recently going out on the streets of the city asking true or false questions around autism - receiving over 28.9K views on TikTok.
Rebecca told Be: "Originally I was a special needs teacher in England. I came back to do my masters in psychological sciences and just saw a need in equipping those who are working with or raising children with neurodiverse needs such as autism or ADHD.
"That's were Eden Consultancy NI was birthed out of. A real passion about helping those and equipping those on the front line. Our motto is changing the world around the child. We don't want these children to feel like they have to change and conform. We want them to be in a world where they are really loved and accepted."
She added: "It can be really isolating at times [for parents and carers] and really quite frustrating when they don't feel that their children are understood or accepted.
"I think we are really moving on in this day and age, which is great, from awareness to acceptance.
"In our video, something I was really encouraged by was - not one person in the video says, 'What is autism?' Everybody now has this awareness of or knows somebody with [autism]...
"I think what the video really shows is that, although there is an awareness of what autism is, there's a huge amount of stereotypes still around autism and that's one of the things we are really trying to help change and break and as I said, that kind of changing the world's perspective and creating a really good understanding that every individual is an individual."
That is why Rebecca and colleague Eden McRoberts decided to get out and about across the city to "bust through some of those stereotypes".
Rebecca continued: "It was great.
"We started with [the question of if it is a] lifelong condition and people understood it was a neurological condition meaning that it is from birth.
"A few big ones that stood out for me in terms of the classic stereotypes, the big one was, 'everybody is a little autistic'. That is false and I think maybe one person got it right. That is one I'm always passionate about too.
"I understand that people are trying to sympathise and empathise but that's actually not understanding that we can have characteristics of but not necessarily be [autistic].
"Sometimes there are situations when we would say 'Aw, sure we are all a little bit autistic', we are taking away from that individual's experience themselves of the world around them."
Rebecca added: "The one that was the biggest was that 'autism effects more males than females' and that is false. It is actually that although more boys are diagnosed than girls, that's because of the way our diagnostic system is set up and girls present very, very differently to boys.
"That was a really good conversation to have."
The Co Down woman also explained how "we have come a long way".
"That is a message I am always keen to get across - that of hope. There is hope coming and there is hope there for these individuals and their families," she said.
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