I have got him that he goes five days a week to Autism Initiative which is a day centre for autistic people and he is doing very well. It is incredible. He has started, about eighteen months ago maybe, he has been going there three years, he started making models, making villages. He is doing the Eiffel Tower at the moment, but they are like big, like miniature villages and they look up, whatever he is going to do they look it up on the computer and then they do a printout and then they decide how they are going to do it. And when someone comes to look round Brian takes the people round, he tells me. And they found out that he likes fishing and he goes fishing. The first time or the second time he lost his rod. They got it in though. It is not his it is theirs but he actually… the fish took the rod as well.

And as Arthur is getting older some things are easier. Like he had a huge obsession where he hated smoke, he hated smoking, and he hated people who smoked, because he, everything is very black and white for Arthur. There is no grey, there is no maybe, there is no… it either is. Or it isn’t. And he had decided that people that smoked were bad and so it was a nightmare because you know going anywhere, you know people smoke and when he was younger would shout things at them, say things to them, and if we were walking down the road and there was someone smoking he would run into the road to get away from them and all that sort of thing.

And now as he has got older, he still doesn’t like it, he still doesn’t quite understand why they do it, because to him, well it smells horrible. It is bad for you. You are going to get holes in your lungs and why do you do it? He can’t kind of understand it. But if I say to him, “Right we are going to so and so’s house. There might be people smoking outside. What are you going to do? Are you going to be okay with it?” And then leave it up to him to decide. And if he says, yes he is going to be okay with it, then we will go and if he starts I will say, “Well you said…” and that kind of thing. You have to kind of plan all eventualities and you kind of get used to watching when situations might spark off.

John’ Well you do get quite a lot of funny moments.
Lynne Oh yes. Hysterical.
John’ And some of the bizarre things you find hysterical. Like in the tranquil island of Iona which is just off Mull. Yes in the abbey grounds there in sort of garden of peace…
Lynne The garden of peace.
John’ Gavin had a tantrum….
Lynne Oh yes!
John’ You know, you just went into fits of laughter with the incongruity of it, you know.
John’ Yes, you can have a good laugh about it.
Lynne Yes you can.
John’ It is quite innocent.
Lynne He hasn’t had a tantrum for a while has he?
John’ No those were the days of the tantrums.
Lynne Those were the days of the tantrums yes.
John’ We call them tantrums.

To be honest although he is severely autistic he does have an intelligence which everybody comments on including the school where he is now. He has only been there since October so that is six months and they are astounded, that is their own words at the progress he has made in six months, in so much that, to give you example, before that he would never sit for more than about two or three minutes, if that. You know, he would sit down and then he would be up and he would be making a noise and whatever. Well they have now got him sitting and he does independent work which is just him sitting at a work station. He has a classroom to himself, but he is sat for over two hours without moving, which is, that is absolutely. He would never do that at home. Never, you know. So the methods the school are bringing into his life have really sort of brought him on.

He is now doing his third karate belt and he sings in a local choir. They do lots of concerts and he has got music exams from playing piano and recorder and theory as well. And he has won lots of medals. His exams are all with distinction and he has done lots of music festivals and he has won medals at those. And he has even performed in a play with a local theatre group you know on stage in the theatre with a paying audience. You know, he didn’t have a lead role, he was just part of the sort of background thing, but he managed to do that, and this is a child… he plays badminton now, plays badminton and you couldn’t even throw a ball at him before. This is all because I have done training and therapy not just national curriculum.

And his abilities are coming out. I am working on his abilities as well as his disabilities, working on both. In the school they ignore both disabilities and abilities. They ignore the lot. They just concentrate on tick boxes for national curriculum. But he has achieved such a lot, such an amazing amount, so I am hoping that one day he may be able to have some degree of independence. He still hasn’t got any independence. Although he has achieved a lot, he is still incredibly severely handicapped. He couldn’t go out on his own for example. He couldn’t look after himself at all.

Nicki’ And because now you know Tyler’s progression is such that it doesn’t play on my mind. I don’t think oh I have got a disabled son. What is the future going to hold for him? I don’t think those thoughts any more, because we have seen such movement and such improvement in the last two years that it is just, you know there is no telling what the future is going to hold. You know the sky is the limit. With the right support from us and the right opportunities, Tyler will develop into a very happy, well balanced adult, who has a fulfilling life. I am absolutely convinced of it. Why shouldn’t he? So you know, I think it is all about, not seeing it as a barrier to anything. If we see it as a barrier and we treat Tyler’s autism as barrier he will too and as far as I am concerned you know he is a great kid. He is worth getting to know. He has got some great qualities about him and we are very lucky to have him. So you know he is going to achieve. He is going to be…he may not be a rocket scientist. He may be, who knows?
Mark’ He will certainly be a gamesworth.
Nicki’ Yes, may be he will write video games for Nintendo when he is older. I am sure that would be his dream job. Games tester may be.
Mark’ Yes.

And he was diagnosed with profound Kanner’s autism which is quite interesting because now he is ten, he started speaking after an awful lot of work from me I have to say with doing all sorts of things and he started speaking when he was about six and a half, something like that and now he talks. Now he never stops. You can have full conversations, albeit very limited subject matter because he can always manage to manoeuvre you back round to what he wants to talk about, but now he would probably would be assessed with Asperger’s syndrome. He would be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and learning difficulties. But his diagnosis was profound autism, Kanner’s autism.

And this is one of the interesting things about the autistic spectrum is it is not stagnant. You don’t just stay the same. And there are a lot of parents tend to look at the [um] three-year-old that is off with the fairies somewhere and think goodness gracious this is it. I remember sitting there bawling my eyes out and thinking this is it, I am going to have a 40-year-old that is still giggling and flapping around in front of me and while some people do, there is an awful lot of change. We used to call it the auti-two-step. So you do like one step forward and two steps back. And things are moving along the spectrum in a lot of ways.