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My first book, What I Want to Talk About

Actually autistic author, speaker and advocate available for talks, presentations, keynote speeches and writing opportunities.

“Pete spoke at our Professionals Conference in February 2020, and more recently at our online Autism and Mental Health Conference, 2021. He is engaging, humorous, honest, and insightful. His thought-provoking talks gain lots of positive feedback from people attending in both professional and non-professional capacities. We look forward to working with him again!”

– National Autistic Society conferences team.

After being diagnosed as autistic at the age of 34 in 2017, I have immersed myself in working to improve autistic awareness, acceptance and making the world a more suitable place for the neurodivergent community. I am most active on Twitter, where I go by the handle ‘Commaficionado’ and on YouTube, where my channel is approaching 2500 subscribers.

Having amassed a large number of Twitter followers in a short time, I was invited to speak at the National Autistic Society Professionals Conference in Birmingham, UK in 2020. My talk, on the everyday experience of school that an autistic child might have, was very well received and since then I have delivered talks, speeches and presentations to a large number of organisations, companies and settings.

I am a keen advocate of the concept of ‘neurodiversity’ – that is I do not view autism as an illness or inherently negative condition that needs treatment or cure. I believe that with sufficient adaptation and adjustment, a large majority of autistic people can thrive and lead their best life, and that the main barrier to this is a lack of understanding, awareness and acceptance of what autism actually is amongst the non-autistic, or ‘neurotypical’ population.

With sufficient developments and changes to government policy, the corporate world and education, it is possible we could live in a world that was suitable for both neurotypical individuals and autistic people, and I will continue to devote much of my time and energy into helping this to happen.

My video conference with the UK company Exertis, discussing how the workplace can be adapted to enable autistic people to thrive.

Contact

pete.wharmby@outlook.com
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