Do you remember when famed inventor, writer, editor, engineer, designer, businessman, and magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback invented the frankly ludicrous - and utterly terrifying - 'Isolator' back in 1925 in order to aid his concentration when writing? No? What you mean you've never heard of it? Well 'The Isolator' was designed to fit snugly over the head and featured horse blinder-like eye slits, an oxygen tube to pump fresh air in and lead-lined 'earphones to stop you being distracted by the guffaws of those looking at you. And here it is: Luckily science, technology and good taste have moved on from then so there's no chance of anyone deciding to market a new version. And on the off-chance that they did there's no way they'd aim it at those poor individuals 'suffering from Autism' with their 'debilitating and severe "stimming" behaviors which cause major distractions in the home, classroom, or therapy settings.' is the...

  Seeing as it's the annual Alasdair Gray 'Gray Day' I thought I'd repost my contribution.   His portrait Frances Gordon, Glasgow Teenager inspired my collaboration with Glasgow Open Museum and guests of Glasgow City Mission in creating 'portraits' focusing on their interests rather than in a traditional style.    You can find out more here plus you can read about the project from an autistic perspective here . Enjoy. Portrait of Frances Gordon. (c) Alasdair Gray, courtesy of Glasgow Museums collections.

 Autistic representation on TeeVee? Readers I give you Captain Liam Shaw....my new fave Star Trek Picard character and coolly Autistic as f*ck.    Fact.        

Phew ....Mad, mental morning here.... laydees are away for the weekend (they have a performance with the Helena Markos Tanz Dance Academy) so Cass and myself have a lads weekend. All well and good till I get up this morning to find the entire kitchen fused. I quickly unplug everything but to no avail - the fusebox is still clicking off - worried that the leak we're still waiting on getting repaired has affected the electrics (I'm not an electrician so who knows?)...still no power so I ring the repair line....As I'm doing this Cass decides that the best way to clean a PS game is to totally reset the system....meltdowns ensue as the screen is suddenly 4:3. This is not helped by the fact that the morning art gallery trip is now cancelled so we can get a repair man out....cooker is still working so try to boil water in a pot. Easy eh? Well it would be if my by now overwhelmed and almost meltdown stage brain could actually differentiate  'tween rings. Burning kitchen roll an...

A few months ago (to quote Cats And Dogs) I did an interview for an academic paper regarding Autistic parenting and decided to pop some of the answers on here as a kinda quick intro into the wacky world of 'the 'tism' as we never call it. And you can find that very post here . Anyway at the time I also did a thing for the Chris Packham fronted BBC project Inside Our Autistic Minds that was broadcast this very eve. Bizarrely I was way too excitable and chatty for TV and ultimately not used as the researchers said that we'd need a whole documentary to ourselves, tho I think the real reason I wasn't featured was my hair would clash with Chris Packham's. So to celebrate this failure (one of many in my life) I reckoned it'd be fairly amusing to share part of my interview. Enjoy.   Your question....your question....what's your question?   1. Who the Hell are you? Hi, I'm Ash, an Autistic dad to 3 Autistic children (twin girls and a wee boy) with an NT wif...

  Always find it a tad confusing when #Neurodivergent is trending on 'The Twitter', you see in our house 4 out of 5 of us are Autistic so the non-Autistic is the Neurodivergent one and the rest of us are actually the Neurotypical group.....   Confused?  You should be.