Krysia Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Autism theology Podcast. I'm Krysia and I'm so excited you've joined us this week for this episode of CATChat. The podcast is a space where we'll be engaging with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources and promote ways that help faith and non-faith communities to enable autistic people to flourish. Our podcast episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month with cat chat every third Wednesday, where your hosts will share news and answer your questions. This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen Centre for autism in theology, which we have shortened to CAT. Zoe This week Krysia, Ian and me, Zoe, we will be reflecting on the last episode we did with autism consecrated. This was a really interesting episode for us because when we first got in touch with Aimee from Autism Consecrated, she said that her and Father Mark would love to be on the podcast, but their preferred method of communication was email conversations and return responses, so would it be possible for us to do an episode where we either read for read their responses, or discuss the responses? And it was a really interesting one, because initially, it was quite challenging to think about doing the podcast in a different way. But as we spoke about on a previous capture episode, one of our goals is to be as authentically neurodivergent a podcast as possible. So we went for this slightly different way of doing things. And if you haven't listened to the episode already, we really recommend going back and listening to it now, or after this episode, just to kind of get a get an idea of what we're speaking about today. During the episode, Ian and Krysia read out the responses that we got from Aimee and Father Mark. And yeah, I'd really like to know, Krysia and Ian, and how did you find doing that? Ian I thought that I was prepared for it to feel unnatural or awkward or strange. And it actually felt pretty. I don't know, it didn't, I didn't feel bothered by it at all. It came pretty naturally. And I think that, you know, shifting back and forth between reading their answers and discussing their answers actually made a lot of sense. We tried to add sort of audio cues so that you knew who was speaking, because we were sort of doubling our roles. And I think that worked well, I think that that it made it clear if you're listening along who's saying what, obviously, there's, there's still the possibility of confusion but - but overall, I was just I was surprised by how naturally it seemed to flow. Zoe It was a fun one with that, because I remember at one point, I was like speaking as me, Zoe, and then I was like, Oh, wait, I've been through this whole episode. It was quite a funny thing to like gauge who was speaking and when to like clarify. Krysia I think what I found really interesting was it was, again, like II and it went much smoother and less stilted than I thought it was it actually worked really well. But I think there's the right balance of us discussing as well, because there's always a risk that would read one of their responses, and then we'd have a very long discussion about it and actually break away from the conversation and actually make it more centred around us rather than centred around them, I feel we made quite a good balance. In the amount of time we actually spent giving a couple of thoughts that we hadn't actually mostly spending it on the voice and the experiences of both Aimee and Father Mark. Zoe Yeah, that's such a good point. And I think it just comes back to that idea of not wanting to speak for autistic people who don't want to share verbally for whatever reason, whether that's like in general with communication, or just in certain contexts, like a podcast, and it is that like, even if you're reading a response, you can still be speaking for a person and the way that you engage with that response. And yeah, I think that's, yeah, as you said, Krysia. It was an interesting thing to balance. Yeah, but no, it was a good challenge and really enjoyable to do. Ian One of the things that was interesting to me, particularly coming from a background where I worked in translation was feeling like this is, in some ways, akin to translation. In that, you know, translation is, if you're talking about language translation, or verbal language to verbal language translation, you're really talking about just about someone who has the ability, often through circumstances, not even their own, to switch back and forth between two modes of interacting to languages. verbal language is in this case. And this is I mean, to me, it was almost the same, we have people who aren't comfortable interacting in a certain way or, or aren't necessarily able to interact in a certain way on a regular basis, or it's too taxing or something like that, again, through circumstances that are not within their control. So, you know, not to I don't want this to sound like we're patting ourselves on the back here at all. But we have the ability Krysia and I to interact in a way that isn't necessarily comfortable for everyone. And so doing that is almost an act of translation. It's allowing someone else's words and communication to be transposed into a different format. And I just, I just thought the parallels were really interesting. And yet, most people are fine with language to language translation. But I think the idea of reading someone else's prepared answers for a lot of people, they're like, ‘wow, that's strange or bizarre?’ And, yeah, it's just, it's just interesting thinking, for me at least thinking of it in those terms. Zoe Yeah, that's a really interesting way to think about it. And I guess I'm just thinking about things like sign language or like DSL. And when people do that, you do very much there as well, in my experience, anyway, I'd be more likely to see it as the person who is communicating before it's being translated as that's the person I'm speaking to. And the translator almost is more like a passive, like, obviously, they're sort of person I'm not saying they're not. But you kind of see it more as a passive act of like, I'm just sharing what this person's said or communicated. For us. Yeah, like you said, reading someone else's script, it feels like a slightly different thing. And I don't necessarily know why that is. Krysia Yeah. And I think another thing that I particularly liked is how we through presenting the podcast in this way, we're showing another way that actually how it can be a neurodivergent kind of led podcast, actually, we're very open to doing things very differently, as well. And I guess it pins back to some of the points we were saying earlier, but it shows that we it's not just about presenting the kind of the best podcast, it's enabling ways to get all sorts of different people. And their voices heard through this really important medium. Zoe Yeah, and definitely, like starting doing this a little bit more, I'm really interested to actually hear from our listeners and other people at the Centre for Autism and Theology of other ways that we can do that, like who else's voices are not being heard. And yeah, it's, it's a cool start to see a little bit of the potential for what we could do on this podcast, which is always exciting. And yeah, we'd love to hear from listeners about other ideas or other people that we might miss. And if we're not open to try new things. Ian Yeah, I want to second that. Because whenever you try something new, that's, that's built around accessibility. For me, there's always this sort of moment of afterglow where you're like, oh, great, that was awesome. We need to keep doing that. And I think that's true. But it's also, it's just, it's just incredible how sometimes doing something that should be a no brainer feels so innovative, right? Like this, this should be this should be a minimum standard. And yet it was, I mean, initially for us - even just so it's clear, we're not applauding ourselves completely - initially, Gosh, how's that gonna work? Right? How are we going to do this? Is this even possible? And I think, obviously, it is right. And it wasn't even it wasn't even as awkward or different or difficult as we thought it might have been initially. And I think that's true of a lot of accessibility measures. Is that the the inertia initially is so difficult to get over and once you do people are like why didn't we do this all the time? And I just think it's a good illustration that even for us it played out that way. And I'm interested to hear from listeners other things that we could be doing other ways that we could include people in the conversation that maybe you haven't occurred to us yet, or we have considered and thought, ‘Oh, that's too different. We can't, we couldn't possibly manage it’. Zoe And also, just to add to that really good point. It's a good example of that not every kind of inclusive measure actually is difficult. Like, it doesn't take as much time, my initial response was as well as like, oh, how do we do this was also how much extra effort is this going to take? Partly just like time reasons. Like, I don't think we should always be like basing everything off on how much effort it will take us, but also, like, we're working under limited schedules. And I was kind of like, okay, I really want to do this, but is this gonna be a lot of work? And how do we kind of work around that. And actually, it wasn't that much work, it was very similar to how our episodes are normally run. And while obviously, like some inclusive measures do take work, it was quite a good example that often it's not that difficult. It's just making slight adjustments and maybe like, a little bit more planning, but not much. And yeah, that translates quite nicely into churches, some and like the things you've said about, like, some of the things that maybe seem like big changes really aren't that difficult to do. Krysia No, and I think certainly, from my experience of doing research, people advise me and give me feedback on what I'm doing, actually, you know, when we did the podcast, it almost gave us a pre populated transcript with Aimee and Farther Mark’s words, which is actually going to save us time. Normally, we'd have to create the transcript ourselves. And obviously, that's something we're quite used to doing as researchers. And we understand as part of making this podcast accessible for a wider number of people. But listening without the captions is actually not necessarily accessible for everyone. Certainly, it's not necessarily accessible for me, I really benefit from the captions. So it's, it's part of it. It's part of the learning curve, I think, for all of us, but in a good way. We're finding we can do more, and we have more effectively paint brushes in our pot than we thought we did. Zoe Yeah, absolutely. It's like kind of challenging yourself to like, see different things and do things differently. And yeah, what was interesting. Another thing that I just wanted to touch on was, certainly, I think this will be very different for Chris and Ian, for you both who were actually reading the responses. Even though I wasn't speaking to them face to face, I really felt that I got to know both Aimee and Father Mark through hearing their stories read out loud. And I think sometimes we can see especially in conversations about like online church or other maybe things that are needed to include autistic people. Sometimes we can say, Oh, well, it's not the same as being in person. Like we had that conversation about online church. It's not the same if you're not speaking with someone face to face. And this was really challenging for me to actually think no, you can get to know someone through other methods, it just maybe takes a little bit more focusing and on things or slightly altering your view on what it means to get to know someone. So yeah, that was really interesting for me, but I'd really love to hear what it was like for you not necessarily like you kind of been right in the conversation. Krysia I guess for me, some of your comments are a remind me of the fact that I remember having a discussion with one of my friends once about how they have quite a few of their autistic friends are online that she had quite a bit of a distance. And it almost reminds me of that but it's not necessarily about geographical closeness in terms of getting to know people. It's is also about kind of the communication and what people say. And the responses from both Aimee and Father Mark, which is so detailed and so rich, that it, we did actually get to know them through the kind of what they do with St Thorlaks and how St Thorlaks work really well, I felt quite in depth and possibly even to a certain extent, more in depth than have we had a zoom call and then had various awkward conflict kind of questions of not knowing how to what questions what to ask, it actually really helped give that structure to help fill out more content effectively. Ian Yeah, and I think it certainly helped that they did what I think is a really good job of, of giving really fulsome answers to the questions. You know, it might have been different if you if you end up with someone who just gives, you know, shorter answers and that sort of thing. But they really took time to think through and articulate what they thought about any given question in a way that I think was really, really helpful. And provided some grounds for understanding them and understanding the issues at play and in sort of something to sink your teeth into, so to speak. Zoe Yeah, and just kind of reflecting on like all of this a little bit more. I wonder, like, I've just been thinking, I wonder if part of the difficulty that people often face, including myself, and I'm sure like, we would all say the same, including us at times. And our difficulty with getting to know people can sometimes be more related to like our lack of effort or willingness to try, rather than the other person's difficulties or challenges, or neurodivergent says, and yeah, just another example of sometimes we are the problem, not the people I say we normatively like sometimes the people who are on the other side, that's bad phrasing, what am I trying to say? Sometimes the people and the more normative sides of the communities are the ones who assume that maybe the neurodivergent person needs to change to fit in, but actually just comes back to that, like willingness to really challenge yourself and put in more effort to hear the voices of other people. Does that make sense? Krysia It does make sense. I was also gonna say, for me, I have quite a significant amount of social anxiety. So for me, even interacting sometimes with other neurodivergent people who I don't know, in ways that perhaps are familiar, because I can't wrap my head around it because I'm anxious because I've lost some of the kind of bandwidth and capacity is difficult and kind of knowing that actually, that's, that's a me thing. And not an other person thing is actually really useful. It doesn't make the anxiety I experience any less significant. But it does mean that it's, it's about me, and the problems that I have, rather than someone else not bending over to meet me every five seconds, which is in any kind of communication or relationship wouldn't be healthy. There's got to be a two way kind of meeting like the double empathy problem. Zoe Yeah, I think the final thing to say before we wrap up is just thank you to Amy and Father, Father, Mark, for letting us try this and trusting us with their responses and experiences, because that is a big thing to do. And yeah, especially when we hadn't done that before. That was risky for them to trust us. So yeah, we really appreciate that. And really, yeah, I really can't thank them enough for letting us do that on this podcast. And yeah, and letting our listeners hear their voices. But yeah, thank you everyone so much for listening to this kind of more reflective CATChat episode. As we've said, we would really, really love to hear your thoughts on what we could do better next time, different ways that we could include other voices in this podcast that maybe when want to share in the normal way that we do the podcast episodes. And yeah, just in general, your thoughts and questions If you want to get in touch please do. You can email us at cat@abdn.ac.uk or find us on social media at @autismtheology. We'll be back at the beginning of next month on the first Wednesday with our next episode.