Tammie Sinclair warned that a special interest made into work could be lost

Most of the Sydney panel on autistic led programs agreed that special interests should be encouraged, and the stories they told were about adults and systems that had tried to suppress them. Tammie Sinclair, near the end of that discussion, asked for a limit as well. Special interests and other strengths should absolutely be drawn on in employment, she said, but added, “I think we need to be mindful to protect our interests as well.” Going all in on them at work could mean losing the interest, and with it something autistic people fall back on to replenish energy and protect their wellbeing. “So I think it needs to be a balance.”

The conversation at the Autistic Pride Day Symposium on 9 June 2024 began with stereotypes. Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, mentioned that a discussion in Melbourne the day before had raised the misconception that autistic people are all good at computers and all want to do maths, when some just want to paint. Rebecca McCash said FutureTech’s own history showed how easily a program could narrow. Its initial focus was science and technology because, before her own diagnosis, she had designed it around what her younger brother Sam was interested in and good at. After her diagnosis she brought the arts in, turning STEM into STEAM, because she loved politics and the arts and realised “I wasn’t seeing myself represented within the programs that we were delivering.” She added that autistic leadership was overlooked, and that people wrongly assumed autistic people could not be good leaders.