You ask yourself a lot of questions as a parent. Most are based around the simple question “am I doing this right?”. And when you’re sitting in A&E with your young daughter (see M is for Meltdowns) you naturally call that into question! Once you get a diagnosis of something like autism then the...
P is for Paddy and Christine McGuinness
I’ve read and watched a lot about autism over the past few years. The internet is full of information and there are many documentaries, TED Talks and other programmes on the subject. But the programme that followed the lives of Paddy and Christine McGuinness which aired shortly before Christmas really struck a chord with...
O is for Obsession
“I’m a bit OCD”. It’s a phrase we hear people say all the time. They’re not of course, because you can be a “little bit OCD” any more than you can be a “little bit autistic”. There are degrees of severity of the symptoms but you either have it or you don’t. It’s not...
N is for Normal
The English language is a funny old thing. If anyone has gone through phonics with their kids you will know that children learn to read words through the sounds the letters make. Every word sounds exactly as it is spelt, except for those that don’t, and those you “just have to know”. To make...
M is for Meltdowns
We’ve probably all been there. Doing the weekly shop and you see a kid having the mother of all tantrums. Sitting on the floor in the middle of aisle 6… shouting and screaming… refusing to do as they are told whilst a frantic parent desperately tries to reason with them, hoping they will stop...
L is for Learning
I’ve touched on this several times throughout these posts that a person with autism interacts with the world in a different way to other people. Their senses are heightened or suppressed, the way they process information differs and so the way they learn is different too. We quickly realised that Victoria struggles with spoken...
K is for Kindred Spirits
I mentioned in my first post that Autism is relatively common, and when you add other similar challenges (ADHD, APD and lots of other acronyms) it’s not surprising that there are a lot of people who can relate in some way to our own journey with Autism. It’s actually the reason for these posts...
J is for Jokes
One of the simple pleasures in life for a man of my age is telling a simple “dad joke” and getting a groan from your kids. Or a roll of the eyes from your wife! Unfortunately for the house jester, this doesn’t really work with children with autism. In almost every scenario a child...
I is for Irwin Mitchell
Before starting the #abcofautism I had a plan of the topics I wanted to cover each day but several times already I have gone off-piste as other subjects come to the forefront of my mind and today is one of them. And today’s post is thankfully nothing to do with us. I was watching...
H is for Hypersensitivity and Hyposensitivity
Before Victoria’s diagnosis I’d never really noticed kids wearing ear defenders. I probably just assumed they were large, very colourful, wireless headphones! I now know that many children with autism have enhanced or reduced senses and it is something that has fascinated me for a while partly because I cannot being to understand why...