A exciting new socially aware band about to hit the street
First came Kraut Rock, then Alt Rock. Now we have Aut Rock. Read the rest of this entry »
East of the M60 Exclusive Review:
Countdown 2007 Grand Final, Friday 21 December 2007
Never mind special Christmas soap opera story lines, never mind all these ‘lets talk about how good the telly was in 1980′ type programmes, this Christmas period’s televisual treat started at 3.25pm on Channel 4. Read the rest of this entry »
Christmas is coming, repeats are fast looming, as people in Argos are still queueing and awaiting their number - some twenty minutes later…
As eventual as death and taxation, the terrestrial television will face another repetition of Bonds from Moore to Dalton, and furniture adverts. Read the rest of this entry »
Famous Australian author and all round renaissance woman’s 2007 UK tour dates unveiled.
For several years, Donna Williams has been well known to the autism spectrum fraternity as a leading author within this field. Read the rest of this entry »
Has anybody had what I would call a ‘Year Zero Moment’?
A Year Zero Moment relates to a time where one’s self realisation after several years had finally paid off. Did anything change for the better? Did you find your inner peace and did anything go upwards thereafter?
Four years to the day I began this post [28th November 2002], was mine. The most part of 2002 was about gaining self realisation and acceptance. It was at that year I realised who I was. It was then I started being ‘Stuart’ rather than some accepted form of ‘normality’, which made me seem more acceptable to the wider world.
In February of that year, I heard a word for the first time in several years: ‘autism’. Having tried to fit in elsewhere through this pastiche of normal, I started borrowing books on the subject and related disorders. Before recently, I too had, like several others been fed the media version of this lifelong developmental disorder. These are the special interests, movements (stimming), savant skills and being ‘trapped’ in a world of one’s own.
A meeting with a National Autistic Society employment agency was the watershed moment. In the last three months prior to then, I had read several books on autism spectrum disorders and visited numerous websites on the subject. On mentioning my interview with one of my relatives, she was - by coincidence - reading an article on Asperger’s syndrome - and thought “That’s Stuart!” Before then, Tony Attwood’s first book on the subject made me think “Yes!” that’s me all along.
It seemed as if an answer had been found for my (then) 23 years, which reduced me to tears of relief. I thought: ‘At last, this explains why I seemed different to most others’. My diagnosis of Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder in 1986 was one reason. Was there another?
What has happened since them? In that time, I tried (and failed) to seek a professional diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, or other ASD (though a proud SPLD-er). This is due to its co-morbidity with SPLD. I had also created my own website with examples of artwork and poetry, done talks, written articles on Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder and this very blog. For me, I have experienced more activity in the last four years than the previous twenty three!
Stuart.
