Autisable

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Matt Davis

Father’s Day

With Father’s Day beckoning, now could be the time to indulge in fatherhood musings. How my son, Isaac, has affected any perceptions I may have had. How he enriches the experience. And challenges it. How his autism may have sent us off course for a bit. How my role as a father in my universe sits slightly out of kilter with others’ universes.

But that feels unnecessary and unimportant right now. What feels very right and very relevant this father’s day is to celebrate something, dare I say it, more fundamental to Isaac.

His mother.

His mother, who gave birth to him in barbaric conditions. And balanced recuperation with a stressed baby from day one.

His mother, who from that day to, well, perhaps forever, bats off judgemental glares and tuts from people who should know better but know nothing at all.

His mother, who had no place to hide from what felt like hell, when her husband could escape daily.

His mother whose instinct told her something was wrong but battled on because what else could you do? Who nodded unknowingly when other’s shared their similar stories; because in reality they were different.

His mother, who ferried around her sinking and struggling son to therapists and doctors. His mother, who never flinched in her unrequited love for her unresponsive son.

His mother, who kept calm when diagnosis was delivered. Seeing a future not finality.

His mother, who learnt and listened and devoured and dissected. So she was armed to the teeth with rights and knowledge.

His mother, who made the system fear her and not vice versa. Who got Isaac the right support, his statement of needs and who never ceases in improving his life.

His mother, who found him a school that was right. And another one when it all went wrong.

His mother, who campaigned not just on his behalf but on the many like him. Spreading awareness, sharing, inspiring, strengthening, surviving.

His mother, who sensibly delayed having a second child for the sake of her first. Before finding the inner strength to create a sibling for Isaac. Mixing nature with counter-intuition and most of all courage.

His mother, who tolerates swings in behaviour of an epic scale. Experiencing outpourings of love, bundles of anxiety and no little cruelty, day in, day out.

His mother, who knows how to push not punish. Comfort not compromise. Who can temper frustrations with empathy. Whose maternal instinct never wavers.

At best I play second fiddle to my wife’s orchestration of Isaac. Managing his days, taking him places, speaking to his school, arranging his time. She is mum, mentor, therapist and teacher. His absolute anchor. Which is why I see this Father’s day more than ever for what it is. An affirmation that what I do as a father is enabled and enhanced by the miracles managed by his Mother.

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World Autism Awareness Day
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Matt Davis

Why we Need World Autism Awareness Day

Today is World Autism Awareness Day. In this guest post, MN blogger Matt Davis shares what his son’s autism has meant for his family, and argues that there’s still much to do to ensure that people with an autistic spectrum disorder are treated with understanding and respect.

A year-long, punishing process of tests finally came to its conclusion with the words “autism spectrum disorder”, delivered in a paediatrician’s room. It was a tongue-twister that deliberately acted as a soft landing for the harsher truth: “your child has autism”.

The diagnosis assuaged the regular bouts of heartbreak I felt at Isaac’s regular bouts of distress. It was the alibi for his perceived anti-social behaviour. But I came to realise quite swiftly that a chasm existed between what some people knew about autism and what most people didn’t. If the condition hadn’t touched someone, it just wasn’t on their radar; autism awareness was minimal at best. On the other hand, professionals, experts and parents who had accepted their child’s diagnosis were awash with facts and immersed in the world of autism.

I joined Ambitious about Autism’s online community ‘Talk about Autism’ and quickly benefited; questions were posed and answered, discussions launched and new people nurtured with the help of its Community Champions. It became a safe haven from the everyday assault course of discrimination, generalisations, judgements, ignorance, exhaustion and difficulties that parents of children with autism battle.

So what is autism? An impossible question to answer with any semblance of brevity. For last year’s World Autism Awareness Day, Ambitious about Autism ran a Twitter campaign called ‘Autism is…’ asking everyone to share their thoughts, feelings and perspectives on what autism is to them. The answers tweeted invoked honesty, warmth, sadness and happiness – a pretty accurate flavour of what autism really is.

The campaign was such a success that the charity is repeating it this World Autism Awareness Day. I’m supporting it again because awareness is a big deal for me. Things have improved drastically over the last 20 years, but there’s still a long way to go. People just don’t know enough about autism. It affects 1 in 100 children, yet the condition is often misunderstood.

Autism’s myths are myriad. People assume Isaac won’t have eye contact, that he’ll be quiet and introverted, or that he must have mind-boggling talents. None of these statements are correct. Isaac is a boy you remember when you meet him. He is funny, inquisitive, determined – at moments tender and full of wonderment, but also unable to know his own strength at times. He loves to learn (if allowed to in his own way) and he never forgets anything.

For my family, autism has been a game-changer – but certainly not in a bad way. We don’t only have a bright, funny little boy – we have a heightened understanding of disability and other people’s needs too. For me #AutismIs heightened everything – love, sadness, stress, happiness.

My wife and I wanted to do something else to mark the day – the more people know about autism the easier life can be made for everyone affected by it, and of course we wanted to raise money for Ambitious about Autism, too. 

The Happy video above came about because my wife, a musician, received a video from her friend Abigail of her son Reuben who also has autism. In the video Reuben was singing Pharrell’s ‘Happy’, on his own, so perfectly, and you could see the joy he experienced as he sang. My wife decided to make a short film set to the song with Isaac and Reuben doing things that made them happy. Simple and honest, just like any other children. We wanted to celebrate the boys. Autism is something to be respected and acknowledged, but we wanted it to be about the boys having a ball.

Long before my son Isaac was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, I saw how the world, with all its peculiarities and obstacles, was that little bit more hostile for him. Seeing him struggle – often articulated as screams, anger and crying – seemed so unfair to me. I didn’t subscribe to the ‘terrible twos’ or ‘naughty toddlers view’; there was something about Isaac’s tears that was different. 


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Matt Davis

My review of In A Different Key – The Story of Autism

I was delighted to be asked to review In A Different Key for the publisher, Pelican Books. Here’s what I wrote:

There’s a brief but reflective detour in this hugely ambitious, perhaps definitive, telling of the autism story, some hundred or so pages in. Steering from the text’s omnipresent objectivity and exhaustively researched facts, the authors make a personal observation that, I believe, has universal resonance. Whilst discussing a depressingly common occurrence, where parents were battling for inclusion and rights for their child (this time in the 1970s, but it could be any time before or after then), they muse:

“It almost never occurs to people raising kids of “normal” health and abilities to ask where all of the other children are.”

I’m not sure the authors totally meant it, but there’s a subtext here that distils the entire purpose of the book for me. Only when people question where the people with autism are can we live in a society that fully embraces the condition. And only a book like this can help to achieve that world; a book that doesn’t cease in tackling a history as complicated as it can be thanks to an ever changing diagnosis, heroes and villains, trends, science, supposed science, misplaced research, the list mounts.



At times it reads like a human rights tome with sensitivity stamped on every page. It becomes heartrendingly personal; an ode to the generations of pioneering parents who fought for people like me. I’d always had more than a hunch that a semblance of fortune was dispensed on my family that my son was born in the 21st century. Trawling through the at times barbaric environment (from Kanner’s refrigerator mothers to vaccine and mercury controversies) my hunch took hold and became a conviction.
The story is bookended with the account of Donald, the first person to be diagnosed in the 1930s and who’s still alive now. It means there’s an emphasis on humanity that offsets the often harsh truths of the book. Indeed a human filter covers most of the rigorously backed up prose. Turns of phrase – from the off – nicely fatten facts that could be starved of comprehension. For example, we are told that the very thing that rattles Donald most, is the ‘raucous rush of unpredictability’, something that chimes with my son, some 75 years and a world of discovery later. 
Taking a linear approach must have been the only option open to telling the authentic autism history. And the sense of a comprehension of this complex condition mutating and morphing over time is clear.


We discover the cruel and psychoanalytical interpretations of the 1950s and 60s that were so damaging and devastating for parents. Reading about Bruno Bettelheim, whose book The Empty Fortress likened children with autism to the prisoners’ gaze he’d seen in concentration camps, thus likening mothers to vessels of neglect, is particularly upsetting. It makes my awe at the fortitude shown by people like Ruth Sullivan whose determination to better the world (and succeed in doing so) even greater.

The book forensically dismantles these and later pernicious theories and falsified treatments that lacked any science. And we move deliberately and diligently to the modern world of autism advocates, adults as part of the debate and a true understanding of the condition as organically distinctive. The positive positioning as the book ends is in many ways thanks to the generations of parents and professionals who fought the battle.

The one troublesome theme is as a result of that linear approach. Yes, there’s a loose curve which strengthens the story. But by not being able to land on Lorna Wing’s inspired ‘triad of impairments’ and first articulation of ‘autistic spectrum disorder’ till two thirds of the way through, it’s difficult to grasp autism’s symptoms ‘infinite shades of intensity’. It’s a journey of discovery I guess, and the reader can make no conclusions till the end. Perhaps not a problem.
Revisiting Donald as he reaches his 80th birthday is the most poignant and beautiful end to this important book. Learning that he’s grown up in a town that seeks him out, celebrates him and honours him, is life affirming stuff. A microcosm of a perfect world where it does occur to people to ask where the other children and adults are.

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Matt Davis

Kindness is everywhere

The very things that many people think make the world go round, actually make the world go wrong for anyone associated with autism. Hustle and bustle, chin-wagging, dropping everything to do nothing, spontaneity, chilling, trusting instinct, nous, crackling atmospheres, surprises, adventure. Society is bred and nurtured on wholesome truths like variety is the spice of life. When for so many touched by autism, variety is the spectre of life. A world where the primers of improvisation and intuition make it a world wrought with bafflement and, quite, frankly, danger. Off script, on high alert – us and Isaac.


And that’s just the uncontrollable base climate we inhabit. Before we’ve even considered the bolts of prejudice, cuts and an antagonising system that regularly blow up in our faces. Or indeed the ill winds and choppy waters of Isaac’s future – education, employment, relationships.

Battening down the hatches has its appeal, believe me. Burying our heads in quicksand, getting lost to a limited life of fierce logic, linear living and uniformity. Scripts, structure, rigidity, predictability. Repetition, repetition, over and over.


But doing that is such a disservice. This deference to Isaac’s controlled calendar of specificity; where he calls the shots of what to do, when and with whom from the comfort of his ever decreasing comfort zone of categorising, lists and scheduling. Instead we try ever so tentatively to tread beyond the timetable. As, indeed, does he. One step forward, two back, as I’ve often said. Challenge him with too much change and it all gets too quarrelsome. Pre-empt his shrill tones of rage and remorse with just a thimble full of new stuff and there can be progress some of the time.

And revealed to me in these positive and proactive moments – when brightness seeps in and there’s buoyancy and a bouncy spring in all our steps – is that Isaac’s existence can be one to really revel in. That despite how ill-fitting the world can be for his autism and dyspraxia (from sensory overload to the ubiquity of physical and visual disorder) right now, permeating this 8 year old boy’s climate is an extraordinary kindness. We are discovering microclimates of care and love orchestrated by friends, family, even strangers. At this very particular moment in time.


His slightly professorial persona makes loving people’s eyes stream. Our loquacious little boy disarmingly (unknowingly) charming others with his scripted announcements and super logic – on arrival at our house, people are greeted with “You’re alive! Welcome back. Are you staying for a long, medium or short time? Did you drive or walk?” (And on and on). Saying a hundred words of detail and minutiae when he can say one. Very literal, very long-winded.

Out and about, his turn of phrase, turns heads. Bringing joy more often than not. Who can’t fail to warm to a young boy earnestly commenting that he is “so happy when I’m on a bus; having such a lovely time. Can we watch a little bit of buses and trains please daddy when we leave this bus for the street near the station at Highgate? Highgate has a capital H. Capital letters are for restaurants, people, names and places.”


In public, Isaac has also started to wear ear defenders to manage clatter and chatter. Just witnessing people’s smiles and warm recognition means for those moments a microclimate is robust and a great place to be. For everyone somehow.

Thoughtfulness can be found in the least expected places. Some recent repair work to our house meant a cavalcade of builders disbanding in his space – and disrupting. The noise and mess could easily have accelerated in Isaac’s troubled mind to a torpedoed home landscape. Step in builder Jim and his innate appreciation of autism, and perception of Isaac.


After answering Isaac’s barrage of questions – some very intrusive like, “Who were you on the phone to?” he replied “Neil, he paints walls. You’ll meet him soon.” Not being phased with “does Neil have a mummy and a daddy?” Not flinching at his repeating of questions, sensing how relaxed it made Isaac. Before long Isaac was helping him lay carpet protector down. “It’s like a sport’s obstacle course at my school,” a typically bizarre Isaac-ism inspired by a subtle visual connection no doubt, and Jim agreed wholeheartedly. In those few moments, the groundwork was completed that eased so much of the subsequent house work.

Fanciful maybe, but it even felt he allowed for Isaac’s visual perception and motor skills challenges, showing him where work would happen, bricks moved, tools left, mess cleared. Unifying for him this tapestry of disturbance to his world into a digestible, comprehendible whole.


And recently, where there’s been jeopardy there’s been a real kindness too. The London Transport museum in Isaac’s mechanical but full-of-meaning words is “a wonderful place, my favourite in the world, a short distance from Leicester Square, where I can get books and toys and watch trains and stay for a really, really long time”.

But what if he arrives there and it’s not yet open? A kink to the flow of the punctiliously prepared day exposed already. Like a cumbersome computer ever expanding its ram capacity, Isaac’s ability to store information increases by the day; the flip side being a crash when the storage malfunctions will be ever more dramatic.


Like all crashes, however, if people act quickly, the impact is softened. The staff we tweeted as his day’s solidity slipped from him with this unpredicted barrier of a closed door responded with alacrity. Just as his stricken self was bemoaning with real distress that “this place is rubbish”, a saintly individual opened the door and allowed him early, exclusive access. The aware and considerate staff made for a micro climate of autism appreciation where Isaac could freely frolic around in train bliss.

Talking of trains (which Isaac rarely doesn’t do) Isaac’s monologues of multiple station names and their adjacent roads are – at the times when he’s open to communicating this extraordinarily processed and recalled information – received with relish by friends. In awe of his photographic memory and encyclopaedic knowledge, blessed by his idiosyncrasies, these fleeting episodes affirm the value of his ‘difference’ and how it can instil optimism in all. 


In fact he possesses an ever increasing, loyal and more than understanding band of buddies. Cousins mainly, who understand the need for one on one so will selflessly come round alone for a playdate with Isaac. Where he may squeeze parts of their bodies for sensory input and happy social expression; and to compensate his struggling body awareness. He may need more treats, dictate when he immerses himself in his iPad, watching something he’ll learn by parrot fashion and regurgitate in times of stress. These few cousins more than tolerate – they get and feel taught too. The lack of abstract chit chat is made up by admiration of his humour and personality. Even the impossible to manage despair and sadness he (very audibly) feels in his marrow at home time, when transition tests the inflexibility autism to the max, is met with no judgement or irritation

When things are good, it’s an extended family micro climate where his exuberance, eccentricity and infectious hysterics, just makes them smile and laugh. It’s so gloriously spirited.


And, no one finds him funnier than that big, at times immovable, fixture in his life, his sister, Tabitha. Someone who needs to be kind and caring forever; perhaps when he’s not being. Her resilience to his (actually in the main, benign) physicality defies her little-ness.

They clash, of course. My wife mediating magically. But there is a kind of beautiful complementary nature to their interactions. Her typically evolving play is imaginative, implying the fine spatial and visual skills that he is so bravely battling with. Compering her mini tea parties can become quite chaotic – she creates, he crash, bang wallops. But Tabitha loves his rebellion somehow.


Both types of play have merit – they simply must do in our universe. And I’m convinced Isaac picks up the pros of reciprocity in transient times. A light goes on, for a spilt second, as he witnesses the reward of sharing; and they both beam. He calculates cause and effect using her as some sort of giant abacus. He still demonstrates a propensity to repetitively play with inanimate objects. Most recently absorbing himself one dimensionally in a piece of pizza dough – he spoke and cared for it quite lovingly; it was moving; Tabitha seemed captivated too.  

As she was, as if seated breathlessly in an atmospheric auditorium, by his extraordinary delivery, word perfect and completely from memory, of the entire Gruffalo story; most amazingly, in the exact tone and tenor of the film they’d both been rapt by. This sublime skill of his – entertaining and enthralling Tabitha (and us) in equal measure.  


Finally, and so fortunately, we have family who just rally round where necessary. When I was struck down by a 24 hour debilitating migraine, a loving grandfather picked up the pieces with immense thoughtfulness. Isaac’s schedule had been torn to shreds; me and my wife were no longer going away for the night; his grandparents would no longer be staying the night. He wailed at bed time that “my papa has to be here in the morning,” because that’s what had been planned, a nugget of fact he was grasping on to in a frenzy. Quite beautifully, papa (having not stayed the night, because I was bed ridden) returned in the early morning to stabilise his grandson. He went out of his way because he perceived that was the only way.

All these events and relationships emphasize just how safe and comforting the many man made microclimates of kindness, openness and awareness are, when we are lucky enough to find ourselves in them. Sometimes in public, usually not. Where awareness has been impressed upon people with vigour.



Who knows the longevity of this not impossible to locate kindness? I feel tears when recollecting the tantrums that people interpreted abjectly in the early years, when kindness was at best evasive. I block out the din of inner dread when contemplating him getting older. Where the world is one of dipping in and out of things; with intuitive filters and edits life-saving tools for folk – anathemas to how Isaac sees the world, pursuing excessively, fixating, immersing, obsessing. When his quirks may be not as refreshingly received. A crushingly conformist world at odds with those deemed odd.


Yet, for now, the 8 year old Isaac dwells in certain places and climates where kindness abounds. And for that, I’m incredibly grateful.

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Matt Davis

Adopting autistic traits

Is it too severe to say autism serves up a degree of daily dread on parents? Perhaps not. There’s certainly a never ending sense of uncertainty.


We awake to thoughts of ‘what will we face today –anxiety, disobedience, delirium, depression?’ Equally we’ll be aware he may elicit his extraordinary bouts of compassion. Heavily physical with kisses, cuddles and unreconstructed, purely learnt and 100%-felt talk of ‘mummy you’re such a pretty princess; daddy you’re a lovely boy’. But they could be surpassed by a sadness just as swiftly. Cruelty can creep in too.

He can sway between extremes alarmingly swiftly; middle ground is rarely inhabited by Isaac. Hence our every day, every waking hour default is ‘on edge’. Always prepared for some heavy lifting.



Our nervousness will vary vastly in terms of intensity. Weekends and holidays, where a lack of routine can take Isaac hostage in horrible ways, could mean it’s heightened. A precisely prepared school day with plans aplenty and a sense of cautious calm could even kickstart the day – although my stoic wife may have to suppress post school potential fallout.


Every morning on awaking, Isaac religiously stays in bed – still and silent – waiting for me to venture into his room (a behaviour so ingrained and important to him that he won’t entertain any alternative). So I always go in early, never lulled by what could be construed as contented quiet, anticipating his strange state of mind. Which then needs some diligent and delicate unpicking.

Very likely compounding the need to confirm the day’s itinerary, something will be mentally fidgeting him which he will attempt to articulate through his repetition or recollection of facts:



Like a train journey he recently did that stopped at an unannounced station: “daddy, why did the train stop at Basingtoke on the way to St. Ives on the national rail services? Why didn’t the driver say so? Because he did say the train stops at Reading and… (lists them all)?”


Or something about me and my work; that “last Thursday when you left your office it was when I was having dinner not after I brushed my teeth…”

Maybe it’s his grandmother’s new journey to work. Something someone said at school. Events, dates, buses, trains.


All matters of fact. Delivered and endlessly repeated in a matter of fact way. But, paradoxically, defying a manic-ness in his head that needs dissembling. Because incubated within this solid, samey information is a fluid, frenzied pool of concern. The facts mere codes and triggers for what could be at first a whine, then a wail.

My wife possesses a particular patience with connected tenacity to confidently locate his real worry about the day ahead: maybe he knows nothing’s on in the afternoon and that’s scary, perhaps he’s going somewhere there may be a dog (he hates and is scared and repelled by them and their, I imagine, erraticism: “dogs are rubbish…,” he’ll say, “they have to go away…stupid dogs”). Or is it a day when I might be home late from work (because I was on the same day last week). Whatever he’s recalling – however long ago – will mean he’s experiencing the same stress levels as if it’s happening there and then, in the moment. His mind can appear a minefield where treading carefully guarantees little in the way of protection from unexpected explosions.


The arrival of his boisterous sister in the room may see him swing into overly disruptive, tough to manage, ebullient behaviour (hysteria, silly toilet humour (I know this is typical for all children!) soon spills into being unmanageably hyper). Before a bout of train sound and station naming stimming (repetitive behaviour) to regulate his mental state and insulate himself from the world. The onset of stimming, this most autistic of trait, a welcome sedative for us all. Affording us a shelter from the slipstream of the condition’s rampant hurricanes. And therein lies a truth about the daily dread autism can unleash. You seek, and take solace in, autistic solutions. The fine line between it constructively dictating your life and destructively defining it starting to fade.

Because at vulnerable times the inventory of knowledge and experience I’ve harnessed about Isaac emits mental tremors in me before I attempt to do pretty much anything. I can catastrophize to the point of crippling anxiety. Indeed I’m certainly not the first person to comment that parents behave in autistic ways so absorbed are they in their child’s autism and its attributes. And so keen are they for an antidote to the chaotic autism-unfriendly, spontaneous society we live in. It’s common sense damage limitation. But it can also be damaging. I know that.


Whatever, wherever, whenever, whoever, the first thing I will always do is second guess what Isaac’s autism has in store. Forever. But when the guessing overrides everything, when it becomes a survival tactic in torrid times, you retreat into a risk averse bubble of inaction and inertia for fear of the helter skelter.

A recent holiday triggered that survival tactic which then overstayed its welcome so suffocating was its nature. The first half of the holiday was as care free and conventional a holiday I believe we’ve had. With extended family nearby, we stayed in a cottage on a cute little farm; it was symmetrical, organised with well-behaved animals. Which family members visited us and when could be plotted and itemised by him. Every day the chickens and sheep and ducks, safe behind fences, could be fed with Farmer Tim at the same time. His previous blanket wariness of the animals became an accepted awareness. No feeding of course, and a demand that the animals ‘stay away please’ but it was an (somewhat edited) idyllic few days.


Then, a mini adventure to the beach, and the fun he’d been working so hard to have, turned sinister for him. Chucking pebbles crazily into the sea one minute. Throwing an almighty tantrum the next. All because a gallivanting dog brushed past him. His structured world invaded by random disorder. He screamed and screamed. We returned to the cottage, all attempts to appease failed. I strive to empathise sometimes. Feebly, I imagine his never abating sense of fear when something like this has tipped him is like I’d be if I knew a rat was in a room I was in. Permanently.

And from that point on we kind of lost him, and perhaps ourselves, to the trammelled existence that a blinkered adherence to autism can serve you. Windows shut for fear of flies. Gulls swooping outside sending shivers; even stopping the daily feeding, detected by my wife who sensed Isaac torn between routine and fear. When fear wins, you’re in a dark place. His eating pretty much ended. Stimming became the only respite, but even that would only satisfy him for so long.

Making Isaac authentically happy (as opposed the faux happiness of transport talk or being boisterous) is hard to come by. When I offered an early return from the holiday he visibly loosened like a tight knot magically undoing itself. He played nicely with his sister, ate a sandwich and even went outside. But was that happiness or so-big-it’s-impossible-to-quantify relief?


Home wasn’t the pure remedy. We spent a good few weeks at the mercy of autism anxiety. Behaving too under its spell. Clumsily, almost unconsciously. Its traits, or our literal interpretation of them, pervading our thoughts. Always second guessing. Always a little too on edge.

A process of marginal losses happens. Isaac’s limited eating, limits further. His propensity to do anything lessens. We all follow a strict routine. Meltdowns aplenty. Ipads are a relief. Life contracts to very little when all these compromises are made.



And liberating us from this not so long ago were the objective Custodians of Isaac’s potential and welfare and hope. His therapists and teachers at his sanctuary, his school. Who eased us in from the autism waste ground we were scrabbling about in. They spoke of his timetables, how he’s loving laughing and socialising at school. Their pride in him. His hilarity, imagination. Mostly though, they implored us to own our lives. Leave him with grandparents. Indulge but know when not to. We innately know what he can and can’t do, when to or to not push him.


I’ve tried to psychologically reframe some of my knowledge about him. Revisit the times he’s done the unexpected and brave. Like allow the dentist to pull and clean and scrape before boldly saying, “it’s a bit difficult having them cleaned. Can you clean them next time please.” Or managing the sensory discomfort of a swimming cap and noise of the pool and engage joyously in a swimming class (but my frustration then at the flat lining in lessons, his desire to repeat in the lesson and stim frustrating me. Unfairly.) Transient times where he courageously leaves his comfort zone.

Importantly, the next time I’m caught in an autism rut, where I lose myself to its supposed traits, I’ll try to tell myself it’s too complex a condition for such, well, crass simplification.


When I need to dig deep, because the desire to anything has disappeared, perhaps a way of positive thinking is to believe in autism’s difference. Isaac’s hard wiring means he deals in hard facts. They often belie inner stresses, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article. But sometimes they don’t.

We really can lighten his mood with a slightly more muscular approach. I barter with him – eat, play, see certain folk; and you can then tell me whatever fascinating encyclopaedic bit of travel trivia you absolutely have to tell me (like that there are three Streathams on the national rail services which he’ll list, before naming linking bus numbers and more.) We can dampen that daily dread – it’s possible on occasions.


Because we can’t always unpick, always fret. Maybe there is simple joy for him in the concrete and whole. His mindboggling knowledge of the UK transport system defies belief so thorough and accurate is it. His inner eye visualises the coherence of lines and roads and tracks and numbers and sounds across the whole country. And feeling like a feat of memory he reports it all back. All the time. It can be a wonder.

But that doesn’t mean there’s a beauty and creativity and unpredictability to him too – and what he says that, maybe, just maybe, we can embrace and foster and ‘go with’. This was illustrated when my wife talked to him last week about where he came from. “My tummy” she said, as you would. “Why, did you eat me?” he asked back.


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Matt Davis

Always feeling autism’s presence

There’s an invisibility shrouding autism that I see vividly, as if in neon lights, so evident is it.


People will themselves to perceive anything but autism. Whether through well meaning, a fear of difference, or simple (and maybe most often) unawareness. I will myself to always use my autism viewfinder, and usually spot a symptom, reason or peculiarity that forms a line, bold or dotted, back to the condition – so embedded in its world am I.

What I am witnessing now in my 21 month old daughter, Tabitha, seemingly on a typical developmental trajectory, emphasizes the functioning of a toddler without autism versus one with. She points at things, babbles back and forth with me. She waves and plays appropriately, with imagination, impetus and meaning. Tea parties, pottering around, blowing kisses, feeding dolls. She seeks interaction and play with other children. My, she gains my attention – and in a confident, communicative manner (some would say diva-ish). She shows a powerful instinct and intuition for moving around, responding, creating, learning.


There’s a loud and clear, forever hovering, question mark around her speech, or lack of it though. She’s sort of making out words, sounds and syllables. But probably not whole words. The nagging concerns around this single developmental drag remain just that. Just. I’m sure people in our situation seek out questions where answers aren’t needed or don’t even exist. And the reality I’m anchored to is that so, so much of what she does do, Isaac didn’t at a similar age.

In those early years then, whilst I saw all what was atypical and was silently alarmed, autism awareness wasn’t there to provide me with any sort of solution. Not till his diagnosis just after his third birthday. More telling, I believe others – friends, family, professionals – perhaps saw very little in the little he was doing; unrelated ‘delays’, toddler tantrums, maybe indiscipline, rogue parenting.


Because what was the most potent display of this alternative, different, disturbing (to me) behaviour? Simple upset. Tabitha’s tears don’t tear through me like Isaac’s always did (and on occasion, still do. Not being prepared for a haircut. A disruption to routine. Autism’s sting always lurks). And therein lies the subtlety. People don’t analyse tears and anger. After all, they just appear to be, well, tears and anger.

When Tabitha cries not wanting to get off a train, or let go of a toy, the toddler tears subside rapidly. In similar occasions Isaac wept and wept and screeched and shouted. His despair was dogged.


Fast forward to now and of course the intense intervention – speech and language, the one on one at school, life skills and more – Isaac has been subjected to, coordinated with comprehensive home parental ‘work’ (my wife the unsung, utter hero here), has set him on a journey where his behaviour and interactions bear little resemblance to those early deficiencies. However it’s not that he’s simply caught up or performs tasks typically – not when you delve and decipher, peering behind the person, assessing the actions.

What has come naturally to Tabitha, took, and can still take, painstaking endeavour and laborious learning for Isaac. Even now her holding of a pen or cutlery, physical gestures, reciprocal cues and more come easier and more fluidly for this little girl. Compared to Isaac’s heavy, laden, elaborate approach – remembering to share, comprehending the definition of it, why it’s a good, nice thing to do; moving his hand back and forth as it signals hello or goodbye. The defaults for Isaac are so unspontaneous, everything needs accurate recall, industry, an all-encompassing literal-ness that can be construed as one dimensional. That’s before accounting for the myriad sensory processing challenges and absolute engrained commitment to memorising, parrot fashion learning of every speck of detail, important or not, and of course, repetitive (not productive) play. It’s all so burdensome.


Someone with autism (and by proxy, family members) experiences life to the extreme, its daily ups and downs. Autism quite often feels like life on the edge. Mundane and maddening often, but on the edge nevertheless. Outside the norm. Marginalised. Unregulated, uncomfortable, unstuck. Envious and enraged on the bad days.

Maybe people are uncomfortable, or more probably, unaware of this and seek to smooth out. Making invisibility of the condition as glaringly visible to me as it’s always been:


Isaac’s acute anxiety means hearing a firework can trigger impossible-to-sedate fear at bedtime. But all kids get a bit frightened at night, right? Perhaps not to the extent that obsessing over Firework night runs well into March and beyond. Regularly enforcing that next ‘November I’ll sleep with mummy and daddy’’ and that each night imploring me to say, identically to yesterday that ‘no, there won’t be fireworks’, and ‘if there are, I won’t see them?’. Over and over and over again.

What about love for train leaflets and maps (identical, similar, functional, whatever); the need to possess and pore over. Surely lots of boys collect and catalogue stuff, don’t they? Maybe, but not when that hunger for hoarding cannot, will not, be sated, masking a deeper, more traumatic struggle with the world. Pinpointing Oyster contactless payment leaflets at stations and demanding I take 20 – that he already has – can lead to calm and a transient contentment. But the paraphernalia rapidly turns to a crutch, joining the untouchable hundreds that populate his room. Inanimate but perilous, should they vanish from his watch.


To say haircuts were my least preferred of enforced chores as a 7 year old would be an understatement. To say I hated them wouldn’t. But that’s absolutely not to say they were harrowing like they clearly are for Isaac. The feeling of circus knives scraping his scalp and bright lights blinding his eyes. Gaudy mirrors, nightmares from the last horrific haircut swirling. A scraped neck because of the hairdresser’s inability to control his angry, enraged body contortions. And worse of all, afterwards; hairs, swarming and crawling into every nook and cranny of the poor boy’s body. Only changing clothes there and then into new soft fresh ones would suffice.

Food phobias, at times an inability to eat, only eating specific foods in specific locations at specific times. Well, we all know fussy eaters. Not to the extent where hunger can be pretty much bridled thanks to the maelstrom of other irritating, infuriating issues clawing away at him. Hunger almost becomes a controlling comfort for Isaac – I guess.


Indeed, food ensures we have a daily taste of the complexities and conundrums of Isaac’s autism. When he wakes up and even before his usual, daily reciting to me of ‘today’s timetable at school daddy’ is a strangely forlorn ‘my tummy is full, I don’t need breakfast’, what’s imminent is an unleashing of emotion verging – or hurtling into – a breakdown.


His wonky food narrative that distorts and disrupts mainly my wife’s days is increasingly difficult to follow. There are the textural, colour and sensual challenges. There’s also the need to not talk about his lunchtime, odd counterintuitive games, where we mustn’t mention what he’s ate at school. Even if praising for eating something healthy.

In fact, the lunchbox rules are oddly simple, just very tricky to adhere to. We can’t make his lunchbox in front of him and there must be no mention of its contents. At all. It needs to magic itself into his school bag, out of sight, out of mind. If that happens he eats the contents at school, every last bite. If he sees any of it being made and/or any of what’s inside, he refuses to eat it.


The old adage ‘They’ll eat when they’re hungry’ is riddled with falsities. As my wife very cleverly deduced – nerves and anxiety suppress the appetite. However hungry one should be.

There is a flip side to all these behaviours that seem similar to typical children but are so different. The reigned-in ups. Rare but as not as rare as they used to be. His liberated joy when all goes to plan. Like a Sunday session at my spacious workplace. A warming, server-whirring silence. The environment as he expects, calm and sensitive, with people accepting his questioning of names and addresses and nearest stations, adoringly enjoying his descriptions of them as ‘handsome men’ or ‘lovely ladies’. The sometimes bizarre conversation starters, minutiae infused comments, squeezing and infectious physicality can be seen as the eccentric behaviour of a young child (he looks young for 7). For example, his phrasing (‘my eyes are wet’ when he laughs and laughs, ‘will my head come off’ when someone tries to explain ‘open mind’) can make people enchanted by him. But I wonder, is his age a big factor in this generosity of spirit?


There’s an all or nothingness about invisibility and autism. That’s probably to do with age. I imagine a point when he’s older that the invisibility I’ve talked about morphs into something visible, exaggeratedly so. Where all that people see is autism – and in epic proportions.

This is a hunch, I admit. But I suspect a reality thanks to the stats around bullying, exclusion, lack of provision, low educational achievement, poorly trained teachers, homelessness, unemployment, depression and more. Not to mention pure labelling and stereotyping.



I guess a healthy awareness, acceptance and an appreciation of difference is what we can strive for. A young teen at Isaac’s school, when Isaac was bombarding him with odd questions said strangely joyfully ‘this place is weird… it’s probably why I belong here’. It made me smile – a self-aware comment on difference, and why it’s ok.


For now just giving Isaac the tools to balance his behaviour can feel like ploughing through treacle. The effort and endeavour by us and him to display effortless behaviours is monumental. Maybe that’s why what we see clearly, others can’t at all. It’s why only if you’re living with autism 24/7 can you really be exposed to the peculiarities, torment and turbulence. To its shear relentlessness.
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Lou Melgarejo

El Mero Mero

Well… not quite the Father’s Day I had prepared for from an advocate perspective. I had a post about half written that I had planned on finishing yesterday, and I had some ideas from a sharing perspective as well… all of that got placed on the back burner though.

The patriarch of my wife’s family, Bianca’s abuelito and hero passed away Saturday at the age of 92.

He was my wife’s everything. I always say that I am the third most important man in my wife’s life… her dad, our son and then me. And I am fine with that.

My wife is the youngest of 6 and is the only girl. She is 13 years younger than her next sibling, so growing up she was aware that her dad (who was 55 when he had her) was older. Before we married my wife was fearful that her dad would never live to meet her kids. He met, and created memories with all three.

So Father’s Day was taking on a very somber tone for the family. My wife was weepy this morning when I told her that her dad would want her to enjoy Father’s Day and to be with family. “If you really want to honor him” I told her chuckling, “you should eat some cake.”
Abuelito with Bianca

My father-in-law, a Type II diabetic for 30 years, LOVED sweets… especially cake. If there was a pastel de tres leches around, that thing was going to disappear. His love for sweets would have been a problem for him except that the rest of his diet was so strict, regimented and healthy that he did not become insulin dependent until the age of 86 or so. There was more than one occasion that I would stop by and find him lying on the floor doing his bicycle kicks to stay in shape. He was an amazing guy… who loved sweets.

We tried to control his appetite for sweets, but he had help from the inside. My daughter Sofie and abuelito were partners in crime. They were like peas and carrots. Sofie loved him, followed him, mimicked him and would cuddle up to and sleep on him or with him whenever she could. She never ran out of hugs and kisses for her abuelito. She also never stopped pocketing sweets for him and handing them off to him on the sly.

At the wedding of one of my niece’s, he had Sofie go table to table and pocket all of the candy favors. He also had her hit the candy bar and slip him a bowl of M&M’s or whatever she could commandeer from the table.

It was with that spirit in mind that my wife lit up and laughed. She shared my cake idea on Facebook and quickly another member of the family (also finding it hard to be “up” this Father’s Day with abuelito’s passing) was all for it and invited the family over for burgers, hot dogs and of course… cake.

And that is how we spent this Father’s Day. Exactly the way abuelito would have loved to celebrate with us… family, laughter, spoiling the kids… and cake.

We will miss you Jose Madrigal, AKA “Don Pepe” “El Mero Mero” “Abuelito”… or to my wife… “dad”.
When you walked your youngest child and only daughter down the aisle at my wedding, you turned to me took my hand in yours and placed your other hand on my shoulder. In a very thick accent you told me, “This… this is for life”.  I nodded and told you that I agreed. The nearly 60 years you were with my mother-in-law serve as an example of compromise, friendship, determination, love and forgiveness.

I thank you for teaching me first-hand what it takes to love a wife and a daughter. I only hope that I can equal the amount of love and dedication you had towards both.

If you have not already, please take time to watch my videos, “Fixing” Autism and Autism Awareness with Nichole337 and share them with your friends.

To keep up to date with everying in Lou’s Land, please subscribe to my blog. “Like” Lou’s Land on Facebook and follow Lou’s Land on Twitter

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Lou Melgarejo

A Cut Above the Rest

Today I paid $20 for a $10 haircut… and couldn’t be happier.

I took Bianca to get her haircut today, and as soon as we walked into the place, she started to melt down. I sat her in my lap to try and keep her calm but she wanted none of it. She was flailing about, grinding her teeth, trying to head-butt me and kicking all over… and the stylist had yet to even touch her.

As Bianca weeps uncontrollably I wonder why I even bothered giving our name ahead of time and killing time at Target. The whole reason I didn’t stick around was because I didn’t want Bianca to get agitated while waiting. I was trying to be Superdad and was out with my three kids and adult male cousin who is great with our kids, but certainly not used to Bianca blowing a gasket in a public place. My bride was attending the graduation of a family friend and I wanted to surprise her with a new summer “do” for Binks.

A very meek and demure looking lady looked at me as two of my kids were chasing after one another like maniacs and Bianca was in hysterics and hesitantly asks who I was with. “Bianca” I reply while giving a head gesture towards the kid who is now on the floor with tears streaming down her face and snot bubbles coming out of her nose.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“I am… not so sure about her though.” I replied with a shrug and that state of calm that we autism parents can go to as the world around us is in a complete state of disarray.

I sat in the chair and plopped Bianca in my lap. This was a piece of cake when she was 4, but is really much more of a chore now that she is 8 and weighs 52 pounds.  Bianca is one smart cookie though, and as we all know forgets nothing. She knows that she has gotten her hair cut at this place before and is now in complete panic mode. Nothing is working; not my phone or scripting her favorite shows, not deep pressure hugs or singing our favorite songs. Yet while all of this is going on, the very slight and quiet lady starts to brush Bianca’s hair gently working the brush through knots and tangles.

Any time she would get some hair detangled and brushed out, Bianca would fling her head to make her hair shift or just grab her hair and mess it up. The lady would back off, wait, smile and start all over again. She must have done this a hundred times. She finally got to a point where she could start to spray Bianca’s hair down but as she did Bianca was still losing it. Now she was saying, “Rain, rain go away”, “Water”, “Agua”, “Hair” and going limp so that I could not hold her. Still, the beautician was patient and took advantage of opportunities as she got them.

As all Hell is breaking loose in my chair, an older gentleman gets seated right next to us. There were 6 other chairs that were empty in the place, it just so happened to be this guy’s luck that the two people working had their stations right next to one another. Do you know that this guy got his entire haircut done while Bianca was in the throes of despair and I did not get ONE look… not one stare? And I was waiting for it. I had the apology and explanation ready to go. It was like we weren’t even there and believe me there was no way to miss the side show that was this.

The stylist tried to put Bianca’s hair in clips so that she could do a proper job, but she quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work. She looked at me with a smile and quietly said, “I am sorry, but I am afraid that I will not be able to cut her hair. I am really afraid that I could cut her, myself or that her hair would not be even and I would hate to give her a bad cut. Maybe we try another day?”

I told her that I understood and asked her if I could have a few minutes with Bianca to see if I couldn’t calm her down.  I let her stand in front of me and got her interested in watching YouTube videos on my phone and as Bianca stood there watching Dora on my phone, the lady started delicately brushing Bianca’s hair. She then showed Bianca the brush they use to powder people with and she loved the soft feel of the brush on her face. She watched her video and played with the brush and then Bianca began to settle down, smile and started doing her happy scripting. As she did, slowly and delicately the stylist began to snip away at her hair.

Every once in a while Bianca would put her hands up or flip her hair around and the beautician would step back, smile and then resume.

All in all, it took a little over an hour for Bianca to get her haircut. In that hour I never saw Phyllis express one ounce of frustration. She never had a snarky comment or tone. I never felt judged as being a bad parent or for having an out of control kid. All she did was to give Bianca a cute haircut with kindness and patience. So thank you Phyllis at the Supercuts in Merrillville, Indiana. Your demeanor helped to put this dad at ease.

And that is how I came to pay $20 for a $10 haircut. Wish I could have paid more.

If you have not already, please take time to watch my videos, “Fixing” Autism and Autism Awareness with Nichole337 and share them with your friends.

To keep up to date with everying in Lou’s Land, please subscribe to my blog. “Like” Lou’s Land on Facebook and follow Lou’s Land on Twitter

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Matt Davis

The Weight of the World on Tiny Shoulders

Being in possession of a single care in the world should be one concern too many for any seven year old. Let alone a seven year old buttressed by physical health, familial security, stability and comfort. But part and parcel of autism’s package is some wayward brain wiring that seems to spark major anxiety not to mention a very real possibility of mental health issues. From an incredibly unfair, early age.


Isaac loads his days, and quite possibly nights, with an assortment of cares, frets and stresses – too many to numerate – that take counter intuition and patience to even begin to quell. Many of them, of course, centre on his desperate, pathological need to manage and compose his days with strict, sequential events he’s familiar with. And he will prowl after my wife and me seeking clarification and confirmation and minute by minute commentary. Over and over and over again.

“Mummy, who’s looking after Tabitha after her sleep number one?”

“Is daddy going to work now or very soon?”


“Can we go to Costa Coffee on Finchley Road before the clock clicks to PM?”
“Daddy, where are your friends? Are they at home or going to work?”

The harrying begins before breakfast. With many questions and answers compiled – out of necessity – during the previous 24 hours. Scripted, by him, without ambiguity, tonally specific, not a word out of place. With all the information needing regular reinforcement in the form of repetition. To not conform, to answer without precision or attempt to divert, is to risk agitation at best, most likely meltdown. To therefore execute any plan is a highwire act, the more mundane the more menacing; such is his need to control, dictate and deliver, the tiniest deviation will trigger upset. We are hostage to who goes where, when and how. Popping to the papershop on the way to the station when it hasn’t been planned and discussed and repeated? Forget it.


There’s no let up. No respite from a need to balance his ever computing mind, the oxygen of literal information his survival. Survival, not satisfaction. Or contentment really. Answers provide transient reassurance, ephemeral composure, as opposed to any overt happiness on his part. These cares of his, these things he really, really, really worries about with their terrifying capacity to dominate him and therefore us.

There’s an overriding need to control everything that means the routine obsession has mutated into other forms of repetition, detail and description. He mines me for minutiae, mainly things I’ve told him time and time again. (Offering up new information, even in the factual, dry way he desires so desperately is hit and miss. The discoveries of detail need to be initiated by him in the main). People’s addresses, their whereabouts, train stations, street names, bus routes, places we’ve been. Things people have said, announcements train drivers have made, announcements train drivers should have said but didn’t. And dates. Of all events. All unerringly accurate. And all of this, this avalanche, delivered at pace from the moment he awakes, identically, forcefully.


“Daddy when you go to your office near Oxford Street, will you touch Oyster at Dollis hill and Piccadilly? Why?”

“Why has Tabitha got no clothes on?”


“On the Jubilee line, why does the man say stand clear of the doors? Why ,Why?”

“Can I tell you something…The light bulb on the street post in Chestnut Road doesn’t work? When will it work? Now or very soon?”



He knows the answers, they’re facts burned into his brain. But it’s not as simple as information over imagination. Everything seems in visual, photographic form, a moving tapestry he seeks to maintain. Like when he listed (off the cuff and unprompted) all the stations on the Jubilee Line that have a letter ‘p’ in them. This info had come to him effortlessly but pressingly; and of course, correctly. So as ever, a small light is shined into his big brain, that when I’m being positive and embracing enjoy and marvel at. Which is not always. Too often his attempts to make us answer everything, try our patience – and we come up short.


Despite all this, I can’t make as bold a statement as Isaac is not a happy child. He implores happiness in us after any distress. Or even randomly. He will flood with delight at unexpected moments, demanding ‘cuddles’. But authentic joy has a manic, frenzied edge; a kind of chemically induced hysteria if we comply consistently with his commands. And within seconds, he could be grasping his ears, full of tears, punching or pushing, screaming.

(The closest he comes to a relaxed joy, when the tempo of his thinking slackens and settles a little, is, as I’ve said before, when journeying anywhere on the London Underground. He exhaustedly reads all signs, memorises announcements and is energised by intersections. The whole tube map seems to appear in his mind’s eye, each station, line and colour, a kaleidoscope he lives and breathes.)


It’s as if he has a different setting or temperature to us. Swinging in seconds from radiating elation to reaching boiling point. Acclimatising to his meandering mental state can be unachievable.

During the long, drawn out, empty summer break (his baby sister a permanent, chaotic presence too) this perpetual state of botheredness my son has been in has persecuted the whole family. Knowing his despair and demands – but having blunt tools at best to deal with them is a numbing, powerless state of mind to be habiting. Bogging my mind down with Isaac’s fragile and frazzled mindset has been like brutal combat.

But mercifully hope is revealing itself from this dark, deranged place.



It comes in the form of his new school that he has just started. A rather beautiful, inspiring place that battles for around 40 children with high functioning autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. After the mainstream struggles – despite admirable intentions – I have faith that Isaac will flourish here. Focus will be on his unique strengths and interests. Strategies tailored to overcome difficulties will be at the fore. Academic achievement will sit side by side with social, emotional and personal development.


Here, perhaps happiness for Isaac can be attained. A place made up of people who will discover him – and him, himself – in a way no one has before. Because a condition as perplexing and otherworldly as autism needs professionals and carers to lay the groundwork for others to tread carefully.

I hear of a holistic approach, where he is solely in the hands of experts. A joined up support where he’ll benefit from occupational and speech therapy, yoga, sensory integration and more. Where there’s a necessary and welcome very low ratio between pupil and teacher. Plus a pastoral care that sits above everything. Knowledge of autism unparalleled. The condition respected so the child can be pushed appropriately. A balance that only the most skilled and informed professionals can perhaps keep.


There’s psychotherapy too – a potentially unsettling idea for a parent. However, when aligned with strategies emanating from the school, the thought becomes bracing.

Some preliminary sessions with the psychotherapist have told us what we expected. That the battle between autistic and non-autistic traits is being lost. Obeying his orders means living in a regime that’s doing none of us favours. That the relentless repetition leads to mindlessness. That we are accommodating not addressing this mindlessness. That, above all, he’s anxious, worried, on edge primarily because the world and its vagaries simply doesn’t work for him.


And making the world work for him will be painstaking and harsh and challenging. Just assessing the sensory processing hell he clearly experiences (beyond the straightforward autistic ones of routine, order, self-stimulation) makes me realise the urgent intervention needed. Streaking through his body and mind are sensitivities that need dealing with. Wanting to be squeezed, demanding pressure. Aversion to so much clothing and all labels. Needing to smell people. His many food phobias. Freaked by dirt. Terrorised by the irrational movements of animals. Pigeons in particular and therefore anywhere associated with them. His clumsy and poor motor skills and lack of body awareness work against him in ways I can only imagine. The torment he gets from certain noise and smells. All unpredictable, all potentially everywhere.

Now, at last, I know a team is in place. One week in, I sense an ever so subtle aura of delight is emerging from him. Replacing the mainstream school scrabbling about, are the people who will know what’s best and truly deliver for him. Now he’s somewhere that possesses the tools to make my boy happy. Which is the least he deserves.

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