The A Word

[GetHappy]

Starts again tomorrow....anyone watching??

Ooh yes. Thanks for the reminder. Was wondering what to watch tonight now GBBO has finished.

I loved it last time - hope this is as good.

Me too...

Really need a soundtrack from series 1 and series 2 is starting beautifully too

I didn’t see series 1. Does anyone know if that will matter?

All episodes of Series 1 are on the iPlayer at present 😊

Oh great. Thank you.

Is James, the daughter's boyfriend, Don Warrington from Rising Damp's son. He's very like him, don't you think?

I don’t really like it.
And the special unit thing - have they suddenly got an EHCP or did I miss that in S1?

Plus the ladder thing.

I don’t know. It doesn’t resonate for me.

I so want to like this programme, but I don’t.

The mother and father of the little boy are hard to warm to.

The subplot with Christopher Eccleston and the music teacher is a bit tedious.

THEre is no way they would’ve got him
Into a special Unit that quickly!!! Let’s say I have working knowledge of these procedures...

I find it so infuriating, but can't tear myself away from it for the small moments that bring a lump to my throat.

It’s all a bit uneasy - Joe’s father is incredibly irritating...

I live in the same area. The house in in a place called Newlands Valley yet Joe takes himself off on his walk every morning in Honister Pass. The village where the music teacher lives and where the daughter ran to get her boyfriend from getting on the bus is Broughton in Furness which is about 40 miles away. I enjoy the programme but it's all over Cumbria.

Utterly infuriating show! The bit about the Sen provision and ehcp really annoyed me as they have made it look so easy. But the bit that really offended me was when she said to her son “We’re all a little bit broken” he’s not broken. He’s autistic. Frankly I dislike the mother and grandad and found it all a bit awful. I appreciate a drama bringing autism into the mainstream but some of it was highly unrealistic.

The biggest criticism I had of the first series were timescales around diagnosis

Looks like they are doing the same thing for education

I know it's not about the process but it's a huge thing for most families going through the administration of diagnosis and appropriate education provision -it's all consuming

it is annoying, the mother very much so. And why leave the ladders lying around.
quite boring, but again I couldnt stop watching.

in series one wasnt he offered a Special School?, so wasnt that just on the back burner because they turned it down?

I hate this programme but can’t stop myself from watching it.

It’s yet another series where the child is a quirky autistic savant who is fairly obedient, likeable and has excellent comprehension. People will watch it and think it is a realistic representation of an autistic child - well maybe it is of someone at the very mild end of the spectrum. It certainly bears no resemblance whatsoever to life with my DS.

I liked the parents struggling with how to deal with talking to joe about his autism.

But why is he always wandering off on his own in The countryside? The ladder story was ridiculous and wouldn't happen even in the shittest of schools.

Like a lot of programmes it relies too much on its setting and landscape.

The other storylines are too soapy and far fetched. I'm watching because dd has just bern diagnosed with autism and I'm interested to see how they handle the story. When he kept saying 'let me see' it brought a tear to my eye. Dd also repeats set phrases and and has that faraway look where you know you're not reaching her. So think aspects of it ring true for me.

I love how the parents decide he should go to school with a unit so off he goes and especially because in that area there are no primary schools with units or any asd specific provision.

What Emily said - my friend's DD is severely autistic (non verbal, violent etc), and she went through hell trying to get her access to a school with additional support. Over an extended period, not the 5 minutes they seemed to manage it in.

I hate this programme too. A nauseatingly
sanitised version of autism that now has everyone I know thinking that’s what life with an autistic child is like.

Have to agree with pp, that this show is generally very unrealistic.

Yes, the "we're all a bit broken" line really irritated me too. If it was just a scene meant to portray a slightly clueless parent, then fine, but I don't think it was.

The sub plots are so boring. The other parents at the school are unrealistically unsupportive and aggressive towards Joe and his parents. That scene where they called a parent meeting was ridiculous! The ladder, the rude, snappy TA... Just not well made.

The only good thing about this series is the actor who plays Joe. The scene when they're explaining his autism, did make me smile (excluding the broken comment). When Joe said "the good news is, we're landing...the bad news is, we're crash landing- Madagascar 2" particularly made me smile, because my DD has some autistic traits and would say things like this , so I'd already clocked what film it was from the first bit

OK - a lone voice here. I enjoyed it, I engaged with it much more than i did with the last series. I found the mother less irritating and liked the sub plots, as it is a drama.

I know every autistic child is different, they were never going to get a 'typical' ASD child as there isn't one. I have personal knowledge of this. But yes, I do get that there are a certain demographic who will think 'oh so this is what autism is' but that is their lack of wider thinking.