Coping with a change in his special interest

Our son has had a special interest in cars and racing since he was about seven years old.  It's really common for children with autism or ADHD to have something they are 'super in to'.  Being very interested in a subject provides Anthony with lots of joy and in some cases it provides comfort in being able to talk about something familiar.  Knowing lots about something takes away fear I suppose. 

A little bit of obsessions in action

"Did you see the Bahrain Grand Prix?"

Seems like a simple enough question.  And if you and your friends like this kind of thing then it's probably not unusual.  But what if the conversation was:

Our TV viewers have turned to Twitch during the coronavirus lockdown

Formula One means so much to my son, it's hard to describe.  When he heard that the Formula One races had been cancelled due to the Coronavirus he honestly cried for an hour, under his covers, telling people to go away and leave him alone.

My autistic son and his awesome memory

"I can't find my shoes, where are they, where are they?" screams Anthony as he races through the house. Anthony needs to be reminded to put his shoes in the hall when he takes them off. He can never remember where else they might be and has huge difficulty actually seeing them even when in plain sight. It's like directing a blind folded person to an object on the floor sometimes.

My top apps for our autistic kids

There's no doubt that all my kids get technology.  Sometimes it can seem like they are glued to their screens but, especially for my autistic son's, they learn a lot from being online and there's a bunch of apps that are really good at engaging them in learning or sensory feedback, which is so important when they struggle with these on a daily basis.  Here's some of my favourites. 

Two changes of direction, two write offs

Explaining to someone who doesn't have much knowledge about autism about the impact of a change of schedule on my son is very difficult. When I worked, I used to do lots of events, and one of the parts of this I enjoyed was I always seemed to be able to get over hurdles and unexpected issues well. I had a sort of practical knack not only for what we could do to fix things but also what was important and needed to fixed.