Before my son was born I had taught at every level of education from three year olds in Playschool to pensioners in Adult Education classes and from Special Needs children to students doing Master’s degrees.

No matter what you are teaching, to whom or how old they are, there are two key principles that I believe apply to everyone.....the first is that you can’t teach anyone anything unless they want to learn and the second is that you can only begin from where someone really is, not where anyone else thinks they should be. I believe that if you apply these principles to anyone, anywhere you won’t go far wrong. I  also believe passionately that the ‘system’ must accomodate the student, not the other way round.

This is the point I was at when I started to educate my autistic son at home. All our experiences up to then had been about him having to ‘fit the system’, something he was wholly unable to do.

I have to say that from my own experiences, both professional and personal, I don’t think there are many children of any kind, normal or otherwise, who completely and happily fit the school system...most of them simply survive it and certainly don’t get as much out of it as they should.

After our chaotic beginning with the services that were available to us I went back to the regime that had previously started to work well for us. I had been informed that there was a local mixed age and mixed-disability class available but it was totally unsuitable for a severely autistic child. There were, however, plans for the opening of a specialist autistic unit in a mainstream school further away. But all this was hypothetical to the future. We were where we were and that was what we had to work with.

The difficulties with my son were enormous because he was so intensely fearful of direct interaction, both with people and things. But we had to start from where he really was and create situations where he would genuinely want to interact, not just be coerced into it.

All autistic children are different and for this reason it’s not possible to say that any one method or approach is right for everyone. At the time ABA or Applied Behavioural Analysis methods were very much seen as the way forward for autistic children but the duration and intensity of this approach would have served only to drive him further into retreat within himself. Sometimes the orthodoxy of other parents can be just as judgemental as the orthodoxy of mainstream systems and this was often the case where my rejection of ABA as a suitable technique for my son was concerned. I got it in the neck from both parents and professionals. Autism was starting to become as lonely a place for me as it was for my son! But two things came along that saved my sanity. The first was my discovery of a very supportive U.K. based parent network called AIA and the second was my discovery of the works of high-functioning autistic Donna Williams.        

Reading Donna Williams’ books about her childhood verified for me everything that I was feeling about what it must be like to be my son.They gave me the strength to stand up for what I knew was best for him rather than what others thought should be best for him and slowly, slowly it started to work.

Interaction anxiety was by far his greatest problem. This could best be described as a panic attack brought on by any interaction with any person or thing that was either too close, too direct or which lasted longer than a few seconds. It was as if he could not cope with the ‘reality’ of anything outside of himself other than his beloved books which seemed to be safe because he could lose himself in them. The only way I found to overcome this was with the use of a lot of movement and a lot of fun, along the lines of play therapy. He did like roly-poly and running games because they made him laugh and laughing was like a key that briefly released him from the prison of himself. When he laughed he wasn’t afraid and so for brief moments it was possible to slip a puzzle piece in his hand and put it into a box or to nuzzle a teddy bear against his face.

Day after day we went on like this using stealth and humour to find a way in, getting him to do things in tiny little bursts, a few blobs of paint at the easel, a dollop of Playdough into a pot, kicking down skittles. But always allowing him to retreat in between actions so that he never reached panic point. Slowly, slowly, slowly, we edged forwards.

And then one evening when he was five and a half the unthinkable happened. I was so used to chattering away to him with no response, so used to hugging him with no hug back that when I flumped down into the chair at the end of the day it was just automatic to invite him to join me, I was running on auto-pilot. But this time was different.

            ‘Come on Con,’ I said, ‘come and have a hug.’

He looked right at me, put down his book, ran full pelt across the room and leapt into the chair to snuggle up beside me......and he stayed there. He was choosing freedom, he was on his way back.

Gaia Charis, March, 2010.