Saskia has written features and book reviews for The Guardian/Observer and was the lead film reviewer for The i Newspaper. She’s also written for specialist magazines such as Sight & Sound and The Wire and is a regular reviewer for The Arts Desk website. In addition to working under her own name, Saskia also does ghost writing and copy editing and enjoys collaborating with less confident writers.
Links to a selection of writing
https://theartsdesk.com/users/saskia-baron
Campaigning & advocacy around improving autistic people’s lives
Saskia grew up with Timothy, her older brother who was one of the first children in the UK to be diagnosed as autistic in 1963. Their father, Michael Baron, was one of the parents who founded the National Autistic Society in 1965. Saskia made the acclaimed documentary, The Autism Puzzle, for the BBC in 2002. It looks at how understanding of autism has evolved since the 1940s and portrays the lives of adults and children living with the condition. The documentary has been shown in over thirty countries and is widely used in autism training at universities.
As well as writing about autism, Saskia also presents at conferences on the media representation of autism as well as her experience of autistic people as they age and their health disparities with neurotypical peers. She advises programmers at several autism organisations on the choice of speakers and topics for conferences and workshops and enjoys chairing as well as presenting her own work.
Saskia has taken part in several long term university research projects aimed at improving understanding of autistic people as they age and meeting their needs for better health support. She has also been a Trustee for the Inge Wakehurst Trust, which endowed research into improving outcome for autistic people. She has also been a Trustee for Respond, a campaigning organisation that provides effective therapeutic support and advocacy to people with intellectual disabilities (and sometimes autism) who have been victims of abuse both institutional and familial.
References/quotes
Look through old tv reviews cuttings file – copy Clare Beavan’s newspaper cutting style?
Quotes from conference feed back on presentations
Recommendations re conference programming, trustee work from NAS, Noelle
