Tuesday 2 April 2024 (Autism Awareness Day) marks the start of World Autism Acceptance Week, which runs until 8 April. Raising awareness of what Autism is and, importantly, what it isn’t is an admirable pursuit…
Last week, we received in the letterbox an invitation to a Christmas street party, and immediately my heart quickened. My thoughts (paraphrased here for brevity) as I expressed them to my wife when she presented…
The Australian brush turkey, or bush turkey, or scrub turkey is not a beautiful bird. But, as I have learnt recently, it possesses many other qualities that demand one sits up and takes notice. They…
This blog post is the final in a series of stories I’ve written to coincide with the first-year anniversary of my Autism diagnosis, so it seemed fitting to end where it all began – with…
Since the ABC article ‘Autistic drivers could find their licences in legal limbo’ dropped last week, there has been the usual, and understandable, flurry of chatter online and in the media about what this all…
If you’re the parent of a child (or children) who’s Autistic, or who you think might be, I want you to sit up and take particular notice of this post. And if you’re not –…
I don’t think very much of doctors, or any “brand” of health professional really – except for the nurses that tend to do most of the heavy lifting. I haven’t come to this opinion lightly…
This week hasn’t gone at all the way I’d planned it to – thanks to the NDIS making a royal mess of my application for a simple plan variation, and a belligerent brush turkey that…
In researching many of the stories I’ve written these past six months, it has sometimes been difficult to discern fiction from fact. And if it’s difficult for me – someone with a vested interest in…
To most people, Autism is a word. One they’ve heard rarely, most likely on TV – during a news bulletin perhaps – or in a movie. That’s how it was for me, too, before I…
At time of writing, the forecast maximums for the next four days where I live in the suburbs surrounding Brisbane are 34, 31, 33, and 35 (that last one is today!). That’s Celsius. And it’s…
By the time I reached my late teens, I couldn’t walk through the local shopping centre without feeling like everyone was laughing at me. That I had never met these people didn’t matter. That they…
A few months after I received my Autism diagnosis, the psychiatrist I’d been seeing suggested that I also had ADHD-like (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) symptoms, and sent me for psychometric testing. I have written about…