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...
G is for Generosity
Yesterday I was paid a visit by Andy from We Are Beams. Andy is responsible for fundraising and made time to come to my house to give me a certificate and gift for raising the most funds for the recent Fire Walk – £1,251.03 excluding gift aid. Andy and everyone at Beams are genuinely...
F is for Football
Today is Sunday (or at least it was when I first wrote this!) which means it is match day. Having 2 girls and no real interest in football myself I never imagined I would be spending cold Sunday mornings cheering on my daughter from the side lines. Victoria has a few hobbies typical of...
E is for Echolalia
You learn many new words on the autism journey and Echolalia is one we now know very well. Echolalia is the repetition (or echoing) of sentences back to you when responding to a question or situation, and it is something Victoria does repeatedly. It can be a cause of a lot of frustration (for...
D is for Diagnosis
I was going to write something else today, but this morning I got chatting to a lady about autism who asked how we got a diagnosis for Victoria, how did we know to even try to get a diagnosis and what did the diagnosis mean for us, so I thought that would be a...
C is for Causes and Cures
Put simply, we do not know exactly what causes autism. It is likely to be genetic and may be hereditary but as yet the evidence of a gene or genes responsible for autism hasn’t been found. Although we don’t know the causes, we do know what doesn’t cause autism: vaccines. In 1998 Andrew Wakefield...
B is for Beams
We Are Beams is a local charity based in Hextable, Kent. I say “charity” but what I really mean is “a vital social service that receives no government funding”. It is a scandal that society has to rely on charities to function but given that I can’t change the system I can at least...