Tempus

I'm not sure about the current state of services in Leicester, never having used them myself except when getting a diagnosis (which, although a slow process, was very good -- the person I eventually saw was excellent and well-known) . My mum works at the City Council and last I heard was on a planning committee at the moment, or something or other aimed at improving said services for ASDs -- so there is at least scope to see improvement in future, if such a thing exists. I certainly wouldn't say above average though. If you are considering moving somewhere specifically for better services, I wouldn't advise Leicester.

My mum didn't actually tell me specifically, it was first mentioned when I was 11 and my mum left a newspaper article lying around (or similar, can't remember exactly what it was) that I read and then saw the similarities for myself. I think that's quite a good way to go about it if a child is relatively self-aware; for me it was a relief to have a name put to it and I think figuring it out for myself rather than being 'labelled' by somebody else probably went a good way towards acceptance too.

This. I was expecting it to be awful (X-factor has a ridiculous amount of 'sob-stories' that it was likely to be cringeworthy. It was a really good performance. Shame he didn't get through, but good on him for going for it.

I'm 18 now and have had a limited range of foods that I'll eat all my life. I know my mum despairs about it, and it logically doesn't make that much sense to me -- it's mostly textures that I'm averse to but in the case of some things (such as fish, melted cheese and eggs) it is also the smell. I pretty much live on pasta (I'd say I eat it 90% of days). This quote is the main reason I wanted to post; I guess that those sorts of skills are important in a way, but I am still unable to use a knife and fork properly. I can use a knife in the wrong hand ineffectively if there is some very tough meat or similar -- but other than that I just use a fork (in right hand) without a knife. It's never caused me any real problems in the long run; I can cut practically anything with the side of the fork. I know that up to the age of 10 or 11 I quite often just used a spoon instead of a knife and fork for a lot of meals. Just wanted to point out that as these things go it's not that important as a skill to be able to eat properly -- rather to just eat foods that contain at least nutritional value.

Yup. I know all their supposed reasoning behind it, but for a system that was supposed to be more efficient they've really screwed it up

I have this problem too. Making phone calls myself is less of an issue -- it freaks me out and I avoid them as much as possible (I get somebody else to do it or use the internet if I possibly can), but if I need to I write myself a list of prompts on my laptop and use those to make sure I don't just freeze up and not say anything. That seems to work for me. In regards to the phone ringing I quite often just don't answer it. If I do answer it, it always increases my stress levels to ridiculous heights. And I completely agree with the analogy about walking into a room -- if you were wanting someone's attention you wouldn't just shout 'LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN' at them until they answered you. It's just stress before you even answer!

That video is so utterly ****** up it makes me want to be sick. I thought that the comments here must be exaggerating (though I am a staunch hater of Autism Speaks they seemed a little melodramatic) referring to it as like a horror movie, but it was absolutely disturbing. I'm sure that some people will believe what this short puts across, and the ramifications of that are horrible.

I've had similar experiences to you. I applied back in March, my declaration letter only arrived yesterday. And even this doesn't include the means-tested grants I applied for; they are just doing the loans for now. It's absolutely ridiculous. The new system really doesn't work!

"Help! I Seem to be Getting More Autistic!" http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html An excellent article with a wide variety of possible reasons for this.

I'd agree with this, but I think it's wrong for someone without autism to make that judgement -- even more so for a member of the press to do so, where as a result the term is used in mass media.

Quite an interesting review: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/aug...ic-me-tv-review

Got to say well done to the makers of this documentary; it was remarkably unbiased and I found I could relate to each of the people in it in some way. A few things stood out to me especially. Firstly was in Oli's interview with the council worker where he mentioned wanting to do a job relating to the Arts -- and then his Mum piping in with 'repetitive data entry'; if someone said that to me, something that was completely aside from the idea that I had mentioned, I have to say I would be incredibly insulted. Practically, I agree with the mother - but for somebody who is supposedly neurologically typical that shows a remarkable lack of tact and empathy. Second thing was relating to Tom's fight with his Dad. The documentary came over entirely on the side of his parents, and I can appreciate why that is. I'll say now that I disagree with violence in any form -- but I find myself sympathising far more with Tom than his Dad; even if I had hit somebody, being restrained to the ground (for anybody, never mind somebody who is autistic) would aggravate me ten-fold, and at which stage I would personally become incredibly violent. It seemed to me that when Tom hit his mother earlier on in the documentary he was just trying to push her away -- and she seemed to take it as if he was attacking her -- could anyone explain this? It was fairly plain to me that he wasn't intentionally attacking her, but that isn't how it was put across in the documentary. The last thing was very positive; I absolutely loved near the end with Alex's 'date'. I've never been on a date (or been out with a girl alone in a social situation, for that matter), and I'm guessing that the majority of people (maybe not the people on these forums) watching the documentary would think it strange that they both said they enjoyed the data even though very little actual communication was done. Particularly loved that as I know that I would feel exactly the same way.

Fair enough, I couldn't see any when I looked. Apologies . I've reported the thread to be deleted.

Edit: Apparently duplicate thread. Sorry .

I've got to say that poem is pretty much perfect in my opinion; simplistic but it puts its message across very effectively (which is great because poetry is normally incredibly cryptic, at least to me). Very sad too; hits very close to home. I'm glad to hear that you've passed on people's congratulations to your son; very deserving and I hope you'll pass on mine too