Lauren Talitha

Lauren is 22 years old and was diagnosed with Asperger’s age 13. Her diagnosis came from her brother being diagnosed and then noticing some of the traits in Lauren. If her brother hadn’t been diagnosed, Lauren would have unlikely had a diagnosis. It’s taken Lauren 9 years to start speaking out about her autism, she said before she was embarrassed by her autism due to the way her piers saw her. She says this is one of the reasons she wanted to create ‘Autism with a Tiara’ to show people that she is not defined by her autism and that having autism isn’t a bad thing.

Lauren has a huge passion for acting, one day she would love to be an actress but she’s also aware of the struggles that would inevitably come with that. Lauren uses masking as a coping mechanism, a strategy that can only be described as portraying a character that fits in to society and fits how someone who doesn’t have autism would act. Lauren says that although sometimes she’d find playing a character all day challenging, especially if she was having a difficulty, she loved learning about staying in character and method acting, an experience she will forever be grateful for and something she can bring to acting roles in the future. Lauren’s first ever role was ‘Alice’ in ‘Alice the dragon’ in her infant school play, she says she still remembers her line ‘I’m a nice dragon really, not a bit dangerous, won’t you be friends with me’. She describes this quote as how she felt throughout her secondary school years as Lauren struggled to make friends.

At age 7, Lauren fell in love with ice skating after watching the first ever ‘Dancing on Ice’ series. She went on to complete all of her Skate UK levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold passport and joined a synchronised skating academy. There she achieved her first field moves qualification. She competed in both Scottish and British championships, achieved a ‘Skater of the year’ trophy and in her second year went on to become a team captain and an alternate in the team that became British champions. Living 25 miles from the nearest rink added to the challenge of starting secondary school life, Lauren very sadly had to hang up her skates. Lauren loved skating so much she’d write about it in every story, poem, essay she was given at school. She says that one day she would like to be able to use her skating skills again and has her skates sat in front of her wardrobe as a memory. Lauren will never lose her passion for skating.

Lauren also enjoy’s dancing, something she’s done since she was 5, she performs alongside her dance school and dance troupe at local carnivals and demos. Lauren loves all different styles of dance but she’s currently focused on street/commercial. In 2018, Lauren took her IDTA bronze freestyle dance exam receiving an Honours scoring 96%. At age 12, Lauren successfully auditioned for her local professional pantomime, She performed in 1 of the 3 teams of chorus dancers which alternated between shows. Lauren continued to dance in her local pantomime until she was 18, her final year saw her perform in 2 teams doubling a different dancer in each team. Lauren says she really enjoyed the challenge and her favourite days were when she had a 3 show day.

Lauren would like to thank you for visiting her page and hopes to raise autism awareness in girls. She hopes one day autism will be accepted as a positive so the next generation don’t have to struggle with being accepted the way Lauren did.