Sensory conference September!

ACRC Academy PhD student Rachel Thomsen attends the Aural Diversity conference in Manchester and the Vision Strategy conference in Edinburgh.

In September, I took a poster along to two different conferences in Salford and Edinburgh. It was fun to see how researchers, practitioners, and people with lived experience engaged with the design and to chat about my research plans.

ACRC Academy student Rachel Thomsen's interactive poster.

Aural Diversity conference at Salford University

This event was organised by the Leverhulme Aural Diversity Research Hub (LAURA). LAURA brings together a bunch of early carer researchers and those working in related fields to amplify a core message: there is no ‘normal’ listener.
Research here varied from using captioning as a creative focus in theatre production, exploring sound and memory in people with ADHD, and investigating the extent to which sound can be seen. The extensive programme excelled in highlighting the diverse ways people engage with and interpret sound, and the importance of recognising these differences in research and practice.

Noa Kurumi Nishizaw presenting her work at the conference
Can You See the Sound? A Deaf Musician’s Exploration of Sound, Silence, and Visual Communication (Noa Kurumi Nishizaw, LAURA)

Scottish Vision Strategy Conference

A much shorter commute brought me to the Vision Strategy conference here in Edinburgh. Organised by the Royal National Institute for the Blind and Optometry Scotland, the conference had a stronger policy focus and heard from speakers in organisations across Scotland advocating for more inclusive eye health and sight loss services.
One notable contribution came from The Health and Social Care Alliance Scottish Sensory Hub, who hosted a session on sight loss and dementia, which I was pleased to help facilitate. The workshop heard from Martin Robertson, who shared his lived experience of Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of dementia affecting visual processing, and highlighted the importance of tailored and compassionate support for people with dementia and sensory differences. 
You can listen to Martin talk about his experiences here:
 

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