The Girl with the Curly Hair - Asperger's and Me

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Thank you for all you have done and do Alis. Have been following you since the beginning, and you will never know how much help you have been to me and my family, and how much you helped me to change my own opinion of myself.”

I have combined all of my interests and skills – and learned plenty of new skills along the way! – to create some amazing resources including: books, visual guides, blog, infographics, podcasts, training courses, webinars, songs and animated films. Alis Rowe writes complex psychological material with such simplicity and dead on truth.” Meet The Girl With The Curly Hair However, I do think that an earlier diagnosis would have helped me emotionally. I would have loved to have found a book or a person that I could relate to. What is being autistic like for you? Alis speaks to us about why she created the character, The Girl with the Curly Hair, to help the world understand autism better… I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when I was 22 and I started The Curly Hair Project to innovate the way the world views and understands autism. I’m extremely passionate and disciplined about what I do!I feel like I am insightful about people, because I spent my whole life observing them and wondering how I could be more like them. I am Alis Rowe and I am The Girl with the Curly Hair. I was known as The Girl with the Curly Hair when I was at school. I was always teased for being ‘different’ and having curly hair also made me stand out.

Meet Alis Rowe, the autistic creator and entrepreneur behind the Curly Hair Project , a social enterprise that creates resources to support autistic people, their families and carers. Being autistic, for me, means having a very strict and rigid routine and feeling devastated, like the world is going to end, when it gets disrupted. When someone shows up ten minutes late, asks me to do something last minute, or strikes up spontaneous conversation, it causes me an enormous amount of stress. I have had the privilege of working with Alis longer than any other team member and have enjoyed helping Alis to build and manage the team of trainers that we have, across the UK. I have enjoyed speaking with Alis at NAS conferences and being interviewed with her on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. During my time at Curly Hair Project, we have developed the range of training offered, now have numerous corporate clients and have also introduced webinars. During the Covid-19 period, this experience proved invaluable as we delivered all training via webinar.It is thought that lots of autistic women and girls present as very quiet, shy and introverted, which means that their problems can be ‘invisible.’ Nobody thinks that there is anything wrong, because sometimes they don’t express themselves, or interact much in everyday life. They may have very high anxiety, but not externalise their thoughts and feelings. To the outside eye, this sort of person is quite ‘neutral’ and isn’t ‘challenging’ or ‘naughty,’ so no one really notices them. However, I always say that people noticed that I really struggled to interact with other people when I was growing up– being so invisible made me stand out! What advice would you give to someone who has just received an autism diagnosis? I very much hope you enjoy my work and that it helps make your life and relationships more manageable and enjoyable. My adolescence would have been so different if I had been able to access the information, books and resources that my organisation now offers people. I want to make sure that children and families don’t have the experience I did, that is why I started The Curly Hair Project.