Creigh Farinas
Creigh Farinas is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism and a neurodiversity activist and blogger, and an advocate for autism acceptance. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of South Florida, where she received a degree in Psychology, and she is currently studying for her Master’s in Speech Language Pathology.
Despite studying autism as part of her coursework, her extensive knowledge about autistic and disabled people’s perspectives comes from her personal background as a sibling of an Autistic woman and former caregiver for children on the autism spectrum. She uses her experiences and observations to inform her as she attempts to amplify the voices of autistic people. Creigh’s background mostly revolves around disability rights, neurodiversity, and autism acceptance.
Creigh’s writings can be found at her website, Autism Spectrum Explained, and the associated blog. You can also follow her on Facebook or read her website explaining autism to children. For Spanish versions of her websites, visit the children’s version and the adult version. Additionally, some of her work has been cross-posted on Autistikids .
Read her Everyday Feminism articles here.
Location: Tallahassee, FL
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Her presentations include:
- Autistic People Can Lead Happy Lives: Helping Them Get There – In this presentation the speaker discusses the promotion of self-esteem through positive supports both in childhood and adulthood. The presenter discusses studies about the subject, stories as a caregiver and family member, and what autistic people have to say about the matter.
- Why Would Anyone Want to Accept Autism? An Explanation of the Autism Acceptance Movement – Urging from autistic advocates to spread autism acceptance is often greeted with confusion and vehement disagreement from those unfamiliar with the concept. This presentation will discuss the perspectives of those in the movement and how autism acceptance does not mean ending the fight to help autistic people, but, rather, expanding it.
- Presuming Competence: What That Means for You – This presentation will explore the reason that presuming competence is so important and the impact that it can have on the lives of people with all sorts of disabilities. It also will delve into how you can apply the presumption of competence appropriately to the disabled people that you know.
- The Social Model of Disability: How Someone Can Be Simultaneously Very and Not at All Disabled – The social model of disability is a completely different perspective of disability that argues people are disabled by a society in which their needs are in the minority, rather than by their physical or mental difference in of itself. This presentation will explain the origins and application of this model, and the reasons many disabled people prefer it.
- How to Be an Ally to Neurodiverse People – Belonging to a stigmatized minority group in society is difficult for all groups, and neurodiverse people are no exception. In this presentation, the speaker will discuss how to support neurodiverse people as an ally, both on a personal and a societal level.
- Teaching Kids about Disabilities – This presentation focuses on how to educate children about disabilities in an accessible manner from personal experience and experience as an author of websites explaining autism for children. It covers why this is needed, how to implement it, and in what ways you can vary the information to reach different ages and types of listeners (such as siblings and children on the spectrum themselves).
- What is Autism? – This presentation connects listeners to the perspectives of many autistic adults on what autism is. The presentation will focus on a neurodiversity perspective of autism, rather than the medical model, and on experiences rather than ‘symptoms’.
All topics can be adapted to be presentations, keynote speeches, or workshops and can be tailored to the audience.
If you don’t see a topic that quite meets your needs but think we can cover it, just let us know. We are also willing to create a signature talk or workshop for groups.