My son Harry – as you may already know – has autism and a severe learning disability (chicken and egg? Who knows!).
This week is autism awareness week and I would like to tell you a bit about how autism affects our family.
Harry is our oldest child and doesn’t follow the assumed ‘normal’ autistic rules:
- He does make eye contact 👀,
- He doesn’t enjoy loud sounds but his reaction is limited to covering his ears rather than getting upset,
- He does enjoy having structure in his day to day life but he doesn’t get frustrated or angry if it changes.
- He has a fantastic memory for travel routes but certainly isn’t Rain Man!
- He enjoys classical music 🎶 ( which the rest of the family finds very boring 😴 ) and often has very emotional responses to songs.
- Harry can listen to music on his iPad and then play it back on his keyboard (hmmm Britain’s got talent 2025 perhaps?? 🤔)
- Harry will repeat the same question over and over again, something that is now very annoying but as he was non verbal until he was 4 is actually quite something!
- Harry’s sensory needs at the moment is met by two tablets being played loudly at the same time which drives me 🤯!
- Harry also chews everything …. and I mean everything! He has actually eaten his way through the top part of his coat 🤦♀️
The point of this post? Let’s never assume all autistic people have the same traits and the same responses to the same things. I am not the same as you so why should all people with autism act a certain why?
Another reasons of this post is to give me an excuse to share a photo of my brilliant, kind and funnyson ❤️