A novel treatment for autism

It's called maturation; that is, the natural process of growing and learning.
My child doesn't need treatment, he needs a little teaching, and not even too much of that since he learns in a fairly autonomous way.

When I first learned that Duncan was autistic, I was determined to find the most effective therapy (well cure actually, but I was a lot less enlightened then), and was willing to throw myself selflessly into ensuring that every waking moment was optimised.

(That reminds me of a scary article I read recently. It describes all time a child spends outside of some 40 hours a week behavioural therapy sessions as dead time. The reader is instructed to ensure the poor child is never given a moments peace to just play or ponder, as the parent must constantly yap and sing and force new toys and flash cards and leaning opportunities on the child.)

But a few years ago; I thought that I had to be doing something, or else I was letting my son down and therefore was a bad mother. Thankfully what I decided to do first was to read widely and I came across the view that autism wasn't a terrible thing and this resonated a lot more with how I viewed my son as a quirky, sometimes exhasperating, often demanding, always loving and wonderful boy. As I've mentioned before, this growth of acceptance lead to advocacy and is part of the reason for my blog title.

What I know now, is that it is actually very easy (most of the time) to raise Duncan. We have optimised our living environment to suit his and our needs. We lock some internal doors to avoid unnecessary battles and have a safely enclosed back garden. Difficulties arise often enough, but I'm getting better at dealing with them. This weekend we were away at my brother's house and visited a crowded fair, and he was excellent. I enjoyed his company and was proud to be his Mum.

Duncan has a TV with an integrated DVD player and video which he uses a lot. He needs to watch and re-watch films to catch what is said. I hear him saying the phrases over and over trying to make the right sounds. I see it as an important educational tool for him, although I previously thought only neglectful parents allowed their children to have a TV in their bedrooms. He plays most of the day. He asks me to draw pictures and has to find words to describe what he wants. We manage to squeeze in lots of maths too, as I ask him what shape the desired drawing should be, should it be bigger, longer, are there stripes or dots, do they go above or below. He can turn on the computer and use a variety of software and websites to play and learn. He dresses-up most days and re-enacts scenes from the films. He runs and climbs, rides his bike and scooter, chases and bounces. He loves to sit on my lap for cuddles or a story.

Over the past few months, with no great effort on my part, he has continued to increase his vocabulary, his knowledge of the world, the words he can sight read and he has extended his diet. I just smile and play and keep loving him.

That's all I have to do.