Autism & Sex Education

Autistic people experience and understand the world differently because of their autistic thinking, characterised by its context blindness. Contextual sensitivity is pivotal in many areas, such as communication and social interaction, but especially in areas where things are even more vague, ambiguous and not rule-based, such as sexuality and intimacy.

In this webinar we will describe how sexuality can be a challenge for the autistic brain, especially because the traditional policy on sex education is not really meeting the needs of autistic people. Sex education is often limited to explaining the ‘sex mechanics’ and - in particular in the case of autism - avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and sexually undesirable behaviour. There is a big need for a more positive approach and a more autism friendly sex education. We will explore how we can support autistic people in their sexual development. We will describe different levels of sex education and how to support autistic people in their sexual needs. We will cover all ages and all levels of development.

Note 1: The focus of this webinar is on a positive sex education, not on addressing sexual and intimate relational problems
Note 2: The presentation contains some explicit pictures

Peter Vermeulen

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Peter has an MSc and a PhD in Psychology and Pedagogical Sciences. He has worked with autistic people and their families for more than 30 years and is currently the Founder and Director of Autism in Context. Peter can be found teaching, training and presenting all over the globe. In his work he focuses on many different topics, but in particular: autistic thinking (autism as context blindness), sensory issues in autism, psycho-education in autism (relationships, sexuality and coping with the diagnosis) and happiness & wellbeing in autism.

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