From The Diary Of A Mother Of An Autistic Child

Our journey with our 20-year-old neuro diverse young adult has been to enable him to live independently. An important part of that exercise has been to decode his binary way of thinking.     Should we let him/her go out into the world on his own or should we protect him? This is a dilemma all parents of neuro-diverse individuals go through. We chose the former, and not surprisingly there has been a fair share of hits and misses during this journey of making our 20-year-old independent. Do the hits outweigh the misses? Certainly! He travels to college in a taxi (black-and-yellow cab) on his own, buys himself an ice-cream at the nearby store and has even learnt to get a photocopy done in college and pay for it. These may sound matter-of-fact acts for us neurotypicals, but it is like moving a mountain for a neuro-diverse individual who finds it challenging to interact with people. Our son's attempt to lead a so-called ‘normal life’ may sound impressive but he often gets into ...

It’s World Autism Day and my mail box is filled with reports and newsletters on autism. I have received numerous press releases from organizations on what they have done to support the cause – from podcasts and symposiums to having fun-fairs at special schools, the list of autism day dos is getting longer each year. As I read through these press releases, the only question that comes to my mind is - Are we really inclusive? My soon-to-be 20-year-old’s fight against autism has been remarkable. He is entering third year of graduation at St. Xaviers College Mumbai. He is doing Information Technology and understands Coding, Python, Java, Mobile Applications, AI&ML – most of this is alien to me, gone are the days when I used to be a hands-on mom, when I knew about everything that he did in academics! His tutor, Dr Anand Upadhyay and the ubiquitous Ms Shah, his Special Educator, are bringing the best out of him. The teachers of Billabong High International Juhu nurtured him till Grade ...