www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/posts/The-Reason-I-Jump-Book-of-the-Week
An interesting listen. Written by a 13 year old boy with severe autism. It is in a question and answer format with questions like 'why do you ignore us when we talk to you'. This is asked as a genuine enquiry and makes you realise how often behaviours are dismissed as symptomatic and therefore meaningless. Even medical profs do this - DS1 is not non-verbal but he is practically selectively mute at consultations and so the talking to mum as if the child is not present extends from being a toddler to the child becoming a teenager.