Award-winning gardener-turned-TV-presenter Alan Gardner has Asperger’s Syndrome. In this recent TV series, Alan re-designs gardens for neurotypical clients with his five-strong team of trainees; all amateur gardening enthusiasts and all on the autistic spectrum. His...
I have worked for a small autism charity, Action for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), for over three years now. I originally started working at the charity as a volunteer; this was a placement I organised for myself upon listening to...
For six months Limpsfield Grange School for girls in Surrey opened its doors allowing the cameras to film their teachers and students, the majority of whom have autism.
The school, which offers boarding, takes a unique approach to preparing the girls for life after the...
With regard to the recent correspondence in The Psychologist regarding the diagnosis of autism (Letters, December 2014, March–May 2015), I would like to propose that all of the...
I found it refreshing to read Christian Jarrett dispelling popular myths surrounding autism spectrum disorder in his article ‘Autism – myth and reality’ (October 2014). I have worked for several years with students who have autism and have found they face a constant struggle...
I’m a comedian. I’ve stood backstage at a comedy club on a Friday night hearing the noise of the baying crowd the other side of the curtain, knowing full well I’m about to be fed to the lions. Yet even when I look back at those moments, none of them seem as daunting as...
In 1877 prison authorities calledon Francis Galton with a pressing question. Could it be the case that certain types of crimes correlated with particular facial characteristics? They presented him with a large number of photos of delinquents and Galton set out to arrange them...
Estimates of the global prevalence of autism vary considerably, reaching up to 1 per cent of the total population and even higher in few countries (Elsabbagh, Divan, et al., 2012). In spite of the sparse research data, especially in low- and middle-income countries, mapping...
At this time about 25 years ago I was nervously awaiting readers’ reactions to my book. Having been persuaded to go with the title Autism – Explaining the Enigma, I knew for certain that I hadn’t explained it. I had laboured on it for years and years, and most of the time I...
Public awareness of autism has grown immensely in recent decades, thanks in large part to the 1988 multi-Oscar-winning film Rain Man. But so too has the spread of myth and misconception. Today few terms are hurled about with as much hype and abandon as ‘autism’ and ‘...