The Aspire Project aims to inspire and empower children on the autism spectrum with a comic book that speaks to them at their own level. In November 2013, I gave a presentation at TEDxLaunceston about the history and inspiration behind the project, and what awaits it in the future.

I grew up with a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome, and have always wanted to do something to help others in a similar situation to myself. Aspire is an idea I've had kicking around since my undergraduate years, and it's just now beginning to pick up some real momentum. I'm working with a few super-cool fellow Tasmanians from different creative backgrounds to turn this idea into something really special. I'm handling art and design, and our awesome wordsmith is penning an urban fantasy story.

Once we have a finished comic book ready, a small team of coders and 3D artists will be creating a companion app for mobile devices that will feature an augmented reality mode, bringing the story and art to life in 3D space.

We're in the early stages of creative work, but exciting times are ahead. I'll be sharing more as the project develops. In the meantime, here are the illustrated slides I used in my presentation, along with a transcript of my talk.

TEDxLaunceston transcript

I want you to take a moment to look back on your teenage years.

Yes, really. Come on, it can't be that bad.

So what were they like, and what were you like at that age?

Well, for most of us, it's a mad rush as we're juggling new social demands, trying to meet challenges in school, making choices for the future, all while trying to figure out who we are and where we fit in.

Everybody got lost at some point, in some way or another, right?

Well, imagine what it might be like for someone with Aspergers Syndrome. This is a high-functioning form of autism spectrum disorder, without any intellectual disability or delay in language development. It's characterised by:

Delayed social maturity and social reasoning
An unusual profile of learning abilities
Difficulties with communication and control of emotions
Intense and highly specific interests
Sensory overload and a handful of other common issues

What this actually means is:

Everyday social interactions that most people find easy and enjoyable can be difficult and exhausting.
It can be hard to fit in and make friends.
Isolation and bullying can be issues.
As can falling short of academic potential.
And there's a heightened vulnerability to anxiety and depression.

I was one of these kids, and maybe you know someone like this as well. We don't have exact figures, but best estimates are that 1 out of 160 people are affected by some form of autism spectrum disorder. As of 2007, that's 125,000 people in Australia, or half a million families.

Now, have you ever tried to do something that didn't come naturally to you? It makes you feel pretty dumb, right?

When I was a kid, I knew that things like starting and holding a conversation, making friends, managing the impressions that I gave off – these things were difficult. And this knowledge, which was reinforced by the diagnosis of Aspergers became a belief that these things were impossible. Things like authentic friendships and belonging would be forever beyond my capabilities.

The Aspergers label really became who I was, and there's a whole subculture built around this label. You get some kids who identify with skate culture, goth culture, maybe immerse themselves in the geek or otaku world. Well, I was an Aspie. And like all subcultures, we had a word to refer to the outgroup.

Neurotypicals. That's what we called them. It's horrible, isn't it? This is intended to avoid saying "normal", because that would of course imply abnormality for a group who've felt different quite often for their entire lives. But I find it's attached to a victim identity, an us-versus-them-mentality, and only throws up additional emotional barriers to connecting with people.

This was something that stayed with me until I was about fourteen or so. I began to notice a few things around then.

First, that people aren't quite as mean-spirited as I had convinced myself that they were (or maybe they'd just matured a little by then, who knows?)
I was not satisfied with the future that the Aspergers identity seemed to be prescribing – I wanted more and better relationships than the ones that were available to me, and,
I began to feel that Aspergers wasn't the whole story, or even the main one. I may not be able to choose what comes easily to me, but that doesn't have to dictate how I choose to act. Aspergers itself is a diagnosis based on behavioural observations, so if I choose to behave differently, what happens?

I also began to notice some other things around this age that proved to be very powerful motivators for learning all the things that Aspergers made difficult. No prizes for guessing what they were.

So, I decided I wanted a different story for my life. I settled on an ideal and fought hard against myself to make it happen. So how'd that turn out?

Well, by the time I'd finished high school, I'd made a great circle of friends, taken off intellectually and smashed all academic expectations...

...and even took a few shaky steps forward in a little romantic relationship...

...which promptly fell flat on its face when my family moved to Tasmania.

Now, you may be wondering, during all of this, what kind of support was available to a kid with Aspergers?

When I went through school, support was very much in its infancy. My high school was the very first in the country to have autism support in the form of an autism support class, and I was in the first group of students to go through that.

What did that involve? Well, there were the usual concessions of special education – extra time and special conditions in exams, things like that, and we had teacher aides come to class every so often, which made things a little bit awkward in front of the rest of the class. The teaching staff came from a background of supporting much younger and lower functioning kids, and while they did their best with what they knew, I didn't get a great deal out of it. The class itself catered to as much of the autism spectrum as possible, so I often found myself grouped in with kids with much lower abilities than my own.

On Thursday afternoons, while the rest of the school was at sport, we had social skills classes. These were a mix of discussion, role play, writing activities...

...and ugly homebrew teaching resources. This was one I got when I was about fourteen or fifteen, made with an abominable mix of flash card clipart, Microsoft Word, and Comic Sans! And it was about toilet hygiene. Now, to be fair, this may have suited one or two of my classmates, but for me...

Not so much.

This seems to be a pretty common experience for people with Aspergers when they seek support. They're either grouped in with the rest of the autism spectrum – people who have very different needs – or they get nothing at all.

So, these are the problems that I grew up with:

The ordinary challenges of adolescence, compounded by the social difficulties associated with Aspergers.
The diagnostic label of Aspergers, while useful in many respects, can affect personal identity and feelings of self efficacy.
The subculture surrounding that label can foster an us-versus-them mentality that only throws up additional emotional barriers.
The learning style of people with Aspergers can gravitate toward self-direction, and as we've seen, there's not a whole lot of that available in mainstream education.
And there's a lack of age-appropriate support and learning resources.

This brings me to the reason why I'm telling you my tale of teenage angst.

I've often thought about what advice I'd offer to my younger self (which is really what we're doing whenever we offer advice to anyone). And what I keep coming back to is this:

You shouldn't base your sense of self on a diagnosis like Aspergers. That's doing yourself a disservice and holding you back from greater things.
You need to get out there and work hard on the things you find difficult, because the rewards are worth it many times over.
Things get better. You can make them better. And nobody's in a better position than you to make those changes.

All well and good as far as advice goes, right? But how would it actually go down?

A bit like this, I imagine. That's because raw advice lacks power and feels irrelevant. A message and its lesson can only carry emotional weight when it's related through a story.

In your youth, was there a fictional character that you could really relate to? Maybe had a bit more to them than Captain Generica here. Heroes inspire us. They give us an ideal to work towards. We take lessons from their stories to apply in our own lives, and if you find one in your formative years, they can have a big impact on you for the rest of your life. I think it's time kids with Aspergers had a hero like this of their very own.

How best to go about this? Well, I'm an illustrator, and I love comics. As an art form, they've long since matured, and as a storytelling medium, they're among the most accessible, the most versatile, and the most engaging around. I mean, would you have paid as much attention if I'd come up here with slides full of text?

So, when I was studying at university, I made a comic book to try and tell this story and fill the gap in support that I grew up with. What I imagined was a comic that tells an engaging story with relatable characters, inspiring readers to take positive action in their own lives. Running parallel to it, I wanted to have educational content that would follow up on this initial inspiration, and really give kids a complete package for personal development.

Here it is a bit bigger. What I came up with was a short book that I tentatively named, "Aspire". I've come a long way since I made this one. The story I came up with at the time was fairly simple and drew on a lot of the common characters and themes you find especially in Japanese comics, which I absolutely adore. It went something like this:

It started with a lonely kid, frustrated with his first few weeks of high school, going for a walk on the beach to clear his head.

Washed up on the shore, he finds a magic wish-granting mirror. As you do. Feeling completely sick and sorry for himself, he makes a wish to be a different person.

This isn't something that the mirror can do, so it breaks apart and releases a little spirit companion that will help him realise the true intention behind his wish – which is to make authentic friendships and find a sense of belonging – by coaching him through his problems and steering him towards personal development.

This would lead into a larger episodic story, dealing with increasingly more complicated social skills and personal issues. Towards the end, I wanted the character to have a chance to restore the mirror and make another wish. By this time, he's grown so much that he uses it for the sake of someone he's grown close to.

The book I came up with at the time couldn't do this idea justice, but it's something that's stayed with me as I've been getting my freelance career up and running, and exciting things are starting to take shape around it. Not long after I made the original comic, I showed it to a guy I met at a philosophy summer school unit – James Riggall, former ghost of the HITlab, who's also speaking later today. Over the past couple of years, we've been putting together a plan to redo this comic as a big collaborative project and layer in some interesting interactivity through a companion mobile application. Here's how it will all work:

Firstly, I'll be collaborating with a professional writer to put together a really strong story and cast of characters, to really speak to kids with Aspergers at their own level.

We'll be speaking with educators and researchers to make sure the educational content is informed by the latest science and best practices.

As for the companion mobile app, we want that to include a full digital copy of the comic and learning resources, some gamified tasks and challenges, and the crown jewel – an augmented reality mode, which will superimpose 3D over the physical printed book when it's viewed through the device camera. We think this will open up some really exciting new possibilities for storytelling and interaction.

We have a team lined up, and we're close to securing funding that will enable us to work for the better part of a year on a first release. Once we have a first volume of the comic and a prototype application, we think that will make a good launchpad for a crowdfunding campaign. We'd like to keep it going until it reaches a satisfying conclusion and the story comes full circle, and we have a complete personal development kit for the teenage years. From there, who knows? Maybe we could tackle the primary school years or young adulthood.

I think this will have massive appeal to kids with Aspergers, and really help to fill the gap in support that I grew up with. I think my younger self would be pretty impressed with it.