David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E. was trained in the psychology of teaching, learning & development, having been trained previously as a mathematics tutor in a further education college. He has experience of work in communication difficulties from internships at a special school, a further education college and in the medical physics & clinical engineering department of a local hospital. During his life in Finland, he has lectured and given talks in universities and research centres up and down the country, and was asked to design and deliver a training course to a group of people working in a provincial disability foundation research project.
Upon graduation from Birmingham, he commenced an internship as psycho-educational consultant for Autspect Education Tmi, after which he completed work placements with the national autism organisation and a local social psychiatry unit. David has published occasional articles on autism-related issues in Autismilehti and Good Autism Practice, amongst other journals. He contributed a chapter to Dinah Murray's 'Coming Out Asperger', dealing with experience of mental health issues as a result of non-diagnosis: David is himself autistic, dyslexic and dyspraxic, having been assessed in Britain as being 40% handicapped "for all social contact, learning and expressions by speech and writing".
Despite these difficulties, David gained his degree of Master of Education (90 ECTS) from the University of Birmingham (where he specialised in autism issues), after which he pursued studies in educational & organisational psycho-anthropology/ethno-psychology in a Finnish polytechnic (where he did his development project on understanding autism from a cultural perspective), gaining a Certificate of Professional Studies in Education (30 ECTS) for his work.
Before matriculation into the University of Birmingham, David managed to collect a respectable amount of study credit at a number of universities in both the UK and Finland, leaving the University of Oulu with accumulated study credit of 180 ECTS points: the equivalent study credit for a Bachelor of Arts degree. His subjects were applicable psychology (90 ECTS), mathematical sciences (45 ECTS), archaeology (30 ECTS) and Finnish language for beginners (15 ECTS), with his best results in applicable psychology.
Honours:
- International Associate Editor (Finland), Good Autism Practice journal
- Chairperson, Autistic People Against Neuroleptic Abuse (APANA) pressure group
- Expert psychologist, Empowerment project, (Finnish Association for Autism and Asperger Syndrome) 2006-2008
- Visiting Lecturer (Psychology, Autism Studies), University of Birmingham 2008-2009
Selected publications:
Andrews, D. N., "Mental Health Issues in Asperger Syndrome: Preventive Mental Health Work in Good Autism Practice", Good Autism Practice, May 2002
Andrews, D. N. "Mental health issues surrounding diagnosis, disclosure and self-confidence in the context of Asperger syndrome" (in Murray, D., 2006; Coming out Asperger: diagnosis, disclosure and self-confidence. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London)
Andrews, D. N. (2007) "Are you being served?: Experiences of a trained autism-specialist professional with an autistic spectrum diagnosis" Autismiliehti, 2007/5
Pukki, H., & Andrews, D. N., (2011) Fasilitoitu kommunikaatio - ongelmalliset piirteet ja viestien alkuperän selvittäminen. AutSpect Koulutus Tmi, Kotka, Finland. ISBN 978-952-99852-4-1 (kurssimateriaali) ¹
¹ "Facilitated Communication: problematic features and the determination of the origins of messages (course materials)" This text (written in Finnish) represents the first actual scientific investigation of Facilitated Comminication from a Finnish perspective, and it presents simple experimental methods for gaining data on Facilitated Communication as well as simple statistical methods for analysing the data and making a determination as to whether facilitation is actually working within the context of a structured text of the method.
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