There were several books I requested as presents for Christmas. One was Tony Robinson’s No Cunning Plan, which I thoroughly enjoyed (of particular interest to me was that he and my dad both grew up in Woodford after many generations in the East End of London). I found it a surprising page turner. My next book, which I’m currently reading, is Chris Packham’s 'Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir’.

Chris Packham is one of the BBC’s wildlife presenters, and has an aspergers diagnosis. I’m enjoying his book, but I do have difficulty sometimes when he starts a new topic. For the first several paragraphs of exquisite description I can be really struggling to work out what he’s talking about! Once that has been revealed to me I can get on with really enjoying the rest of the section. I think this is a reflection of me feeling the need to know in what direction something is heading - I have to remind myself to not worry about that and just enjoy the words I'm reading right now, not second guess the narrative. It has meant that I find the book sufficiently hard work that I’m taking a long time to get through it, which I regret. (Also, I love the cover of the book and the fact that Chris designed it himself!)

In his book, a description of a visit to a museum reminded me of my son. Chris writes of his father coming over to him, telling him a lot of things that he already knew, then wandering off again as Chris ignored him. My son would have handled that differently, he would have shouted “I KNOW!” in frustration!

The trap that people often fall into is thinking that autistic people have not taken in what they have said (or in the museum case, underestimating the person's knowledge and understanding). It’s not altogether surprising - if you don’t get any kind of response or acknowledgement from someone you tend to automatically assume that they haven’t paid attention to you, but this isn’t necessarily the case for an autistic person. It’s quite likely that they have heard and taken in everything you have said. Also don’t assume that they won’t remember - it may be that they don’t have the self organising skills to act on it in the way you want them to, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t understand or remember what you said.

If you talk to someone autistic and you don’t get instant feedback please be patient! They may need time to process what you’ve said, or simply not see the need to respond. It is of course possible that their mind is focussed on something else, but don’t assume it! If you need some feedback then don’t just automatically repeat yourself, instead be patient and then ask a (non-patronising) follow up question to check.

Of course, if you’re in a noisy, busy, chaotic environment that won’t be the best place to try to have a conversation (you’re competing with distractions and sensory bombardment), you need to make sure you have their attention. For my young son, if I know he’s busy with something, I’ll start by saying something like “[Name], can I ask you a question?”, or “can I just tell you something?”. I make sure I’m close by, I’m not shouting across a room or something. If, after waiting, he hasn’t responded to my question I’ll physically get down to his level, gently touch his arm and repeat the question - he’ll usually then answer and indicate that he’s switched his attention to me - if not and it’s not urgent, I’ll leave it for now and try again later.