The girls had their first appointment with the NHS Learning Disability Health Team last week - the team were fantastic and went out of their way to make them comfortable by the way so kudos to them - and part of the assessment was to put things in place to make doctors/dentists visits etc. easier for - in our case - Autistic (young) adults. Which is great because Amelia has broken a tooth and due to a mix of sensory issues around her mouth coupled with an abject fear of dentists hasn't wanted to go get it sorted. The LD Health Check team took this into account and made a referral thru' our doctor's surgery for her to see a specialist dentist with experience of Autistic/LD patients. A brilliant idea you might think. Us too. Obviously the specialist dental team don't think so as I've just found out that her referral was refused, it seems that she can only see the specialist team if she first registers with a regular dentist and has a probably traumatizing examinat...
Posts
Ziggy The Glasgow Canal Cat.
The prince and protector of the Glasgow canals, he was a joy to see (and pet and feed) on our daily walks and the girls absolutely adored him - as did hundreds of others who crossed his path (and sat on his bench) every day. RIP Ziggy.
Autism Replays Itself.
Can't believe that's been 2 years since our (award winning) little film AUTISM PLAYS ITSELF had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival so felt it was only right to re-share it for those who hadn't yet seen it (and if not why not?) or wanted to watch it again, suffice to say it would be an understatement to say that this is one of the pieces of work I'm still most proud of. And don't forget that you can actually listen to a version of it on the Radio 4 series Short Cuts too. A film shot in 1957 in at the Maudsley Hospital, London, captures the movements and behaviour of children under observation for atypical behaviour. In the present day, three autistic respondents watch the footage, bringing new insightful interpretations of the children’s behaviour as they explore the sparse environment of the clinic. Through speculation and identification, with wit and audacity, the responses fo...
Radio Daze.
For anyone interested, I was on Radio Scotland this morning talking about Autism and holidays...as in going on one, not that we should have an official day where you all praise us and buy us stuff obviously. As an aside I actually got thanked for my expertise and insight. Check me. By the way you can listen again (for the next 30 days) here .
Skippy.
Huzzah! After over 2 months of telling them that it's full and that the kids (especially Cassidy) are slowly going stir crazy because they can't go in the garden the skip has finally been uplifted! Regular readers will remember that we were given it in March to help us get ready to move in April (to the house that we aren't allowed to talk about) but like everything else pertaining to our move/repairs it ended up just getting ignored no matter how many times we asked/begged for it to be picked up. The main reason it couldn't be moved was truly bizarre - it seemed that because someone in the street had put rubbish in it (as always happens) it couldn't be moved till the guilty party had taken the rubbish out. Housing even sent letters out to the neighbours ordering them to remove the unauthorised junk. Seriously, the letter about misusing a skip was more of a priority to them than actually picking up the thing, so in the meantime the girls haven't been able to hav...
True.
Trying to get straight answers re: housing, disability and the equality act from our housing association (still) be like:
Saint Marc.
BOTD 1957 - the saviour of my turbulent teen years and beyond. Marc Almond. And if you want to know why you can find out here .