{"id":1499,"date":"2022-11-30T11:40:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T01:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2022-11-30T11:41:16","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T01:11:16","slug":"bruce-meatheringham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/2022\/11\/30\/bruce-meatheringham\/","title":{"rendered":"Disability is no barrier to success"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nMore than a decade ago, Bruce Meatheringham (BBehavSc(Hons) \u201922), who is autistic with a learning disability, was working in a factory and had never thought that one day he\u2019d attend university.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, he has successfully completed a behavioural science degree with majors in psychology and neuroscience, including Honours in Psychology and writing a thesis on Sensory Processing Sensitivity.<\/p>\n

With a long list of achievements to his name, Bruce is advocating for autistic people as a national project advisor with Autism SA. He collaborates on autism research, has guest lectured at university and runs his own business presenting to groups on autism and autism sensory experience.<\/p>\n

He got his start in public speaking in 2005 as a young man of just 20 years of age when he became involved in a public speaking group at Autism SA called Voices of Experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough Autism SA\u2019s Voices of Experience, I was able to share some of my experiences as an autistic person in education and employment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was also able to talk about self-advocacy. From there I became involved in mentoring autistic teenagers at Autism SA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce\u2019s advocacy work led to him being accepted into and later graduated from Autism CRC\u2019s Sylvia Rodger Academy 2018 Future Leaders Program<\/a>. The Program is designed to assist participants to become leaders in their communities.<\/p>\n

More recently, Bruce has been working with researchers to ensure that autism research is relevant to, and appropriate for, autistic people and their communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe catalyst for me getting involved in autistic coproduction research<\/a> was discovering instances of offensive terminology towards autistic individuals in research,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve now worked on a number of research projects to ensure the research of autistic individuals uses respectful language and is meaningful and respectful to the autistic community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce is also a national project advisor member with the Autistics\u2019 Guide to Adulthood program with Autism SA for whom he develops learning modules for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed my journey studying at Flinders,\u201d Bruce says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learnt how to think critically about research and my confidence, as a public speaker and in myself in general, increased.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlinders also accommodated my autism and my learning disability so I could learn effectively and not be disadvantaged by my disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce\u2019s experience at Flinders helped shape his research skills and now has many plans for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am considering undertaking a PhD and will continue to contribute to autism advocacy, particularly in the areas of education and employment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019d also like to do more in the area of raising awareness of the complexity of autism sensory experience, plus I\u2019m aiming to do more autistic coproduction research too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than a decade ago, Bruce Meatheringham (BBehavSc(Hons) \u201922), who is autistic with a learning disability, was working in a factory and had never thought that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4958,"featured_media":1500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[826],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-education-psychology-and-social-work"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}