Fussy Eaters or Fussy Bodies, Part 1

‘We are what we eat’ – is heard all around us, and most people do try to eat healthy foods to improve their well-being. However, if we deal with autistic children there are many problems related to healthy food, balanced diet and... Read more

What’s in a word?

We’ve just come back from a fabulous holiday in the USA.  We travelled all over and visited family and lots of friends.  We had a great time, but one of the things we noticed was that everywhere we went people struggled to understand... Read more

The “Ice Bucket Challenge” and MND

What can a bucket of icy water achieve? It was a worldwide craze that celebrities old and young took part in.  Bill Gates, George Bush, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Ford, David Beckham, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Justin... Read more

How crucial communication is and the approaches we use as Speech & Language Therapists

Communication is at the core of just about everything we do in life at home, in school and in work.  It is something that many of us often take for granted until we encounter challenges, often with our loved ones.  I know that it... Read more

Memory in autism

Memory may take many forms. Some people tend to remember concepts and ideas. This is conceptual memory. Conceptual memories contain vast amount of information in a highly abstract, logically ordered form (Sacks 2012). ‘Items’ of... Read more

Concept formation in Autism: When a ball is not a ball but Oliver and cinema are the same

We all start our lives with sensory experiences. The aspects of perceived experience are stored in long-term memory and form ‘perceptual symbols files’, to be used later for reference. From vision, visual images are acquired. From... Read more

Attention in Autism

{Intro]We are surrounded by thousands of sights, sounds, smells and other sensory stimuli.  Consciously we can process only a limited amount of stimuli, and the decision on which stimuli are to be processed in each situation is of... Read more

A change can be as good as a rest

A beautiful postcard of the Town Hall in Birmingham arrived through our post box the other day. It was painted in 1904 by an artist who is an ancestor of my husband.  It was lovely to see the building looking grandiose in its original... Read more

Fluctuation – An Unstable Reality

One of the baffling features of autistic people is their inconsistent perception of sensory stimuli. Although we could address hyper- and hyposensitivities by desensitising a child and/or providing the aids to help them cope (in the case... Read more

Thirty things a standardised test can’t tell you…

I came across a poster on a social media site the other day which said “Thirty things a standardised test can’t measure”. Then the poster went on to list the following 30 characteristics: resilience, compassion, strength, wit,... Read more