Chris Packham Autism Documentary..

[Elderflower14]

Anyone else watching...? I'm very moved watching Ken Bruce's son... Ds2 is autistic and profoundly deaf..

I thought it was great and one of the loudest messages so far is that people with autism are as different to each other and people without autism. There are as many different personalities as people.

My DD is 17 a fantastic masker, she is going through diagnosis right now.

It was very thoughtfully done. Looking forward to watching pt 2

Murray isn't deaf.. He is on verbal.
I was just saying in my OP that my ds2 is...

It’s on my to watch list as I have an autistic toddler grandson and also an adult child who we suspect is on the spectrum, so I have a lot to learn!

Ds2 is deaf, autistic has Waardenburg Syndrome and also has dyspraxia like me. His deafness wasn't picked up till he was two and a quarter.. They thought he was autistic then but then decided he wasn't. I pushed the school to diagnose his dyspraxia when he was six as I never had a formal diagnosis and had a horrid time at school.... His autism was eventually diagnosed when he was 13 at a specialist deaf/autistic unit at a psychiatric hospital in London. I noticed albino patches on his skin and grey hair on the back on of his head about the same time and a friend mentioned WS. I asked the psychiatrist in London if he thought it was WS and he was very dismissive which put my back up. I spoke to his paediatrician who referred ds to a geneticist. His DNA was tested... Apparently its not Type 1 or 3 WS and at the time there was no test for Type 2 but the geneticist was 98% sure that's what it was.

I plan to watch this later today.
My eldest - DD- thinks they’re autistic- they have many traits but haven’t pursued a diagnosis yet. I always thought DS was as a younger child but he has ‘grown out’ of certain behaviours. Both DCs have diagnosed anxiety though. They are very different from each other - it would not surprise me if they were both autistic but they’re adults so need to take their own paths (also both highly intelligent but struggle to cope w the rigours of academia).

@Elderflower14

I think that's one of the hardest aspects of being a parent to a child needing help and support. When 'experts' are dismissive and rude etc to you.

@tothelefttotheleft Absolutely.. Ds2 had fits at two weeks old. So had been under the hospital since then. The paediatrician was ds2s second and had seen him since since he was 9 months. I went in to see him told him everything and said I wasn't going to be fobbed off. He replied that he wouldn't even try and fob me off..!

What an amazing guy Murray is, I loved how he wrote about being with the horses. I know not all autistic people are the same, but I think he summed up for may why they feel so comfortable and at ease around animals.

I hope the term 'non speaking' will come to replace 'non verbal', Murray certainly has plenty to verbalise! I hope he writes more!

(At least) One of the production team is also autistic and did a training session at my work about neuro-diversity in our industry. He referenced this show and how adjustments can be made to support neuro-diversity in the workplace. My DS (15) is high-functioning autistic, and I found this a lovely, moving but also tough watch.

I just watched the 1st half an hour and I can’t wait to hear Murray’s message, so interesting to see Chris not in presenter mode.

I have a number on my caseload at the moment who have a combination of deafness or severe hearing impairments, autism and learning disabilities. They tend to be quite hard to find an appropriate service to support them well as the deaf/visually impaired team struggle with the LD angle, and the autism team is for autism without any LD - so eventually they make their way to LD services where they probably fit best.

I'm a SLT, working with learning disabilities and often autism as a co-morbidity along with that, also a late diagnosed autistic myself and mum to at least one autistic child (the other is on the waiting list for assessment. I was fucking raging at the Paddy McGuiness documentary (to be fair, anything involving Simon Baron-Cohen, theory of mind, extreme male brain etc has that effect on me) so I'm steeling myself to watch this one.

I haven't watched it incase it makes me sad or irritated. Is it a overly positive show? Because that's not my reality

This is the thing at that end of the spectrum - get the right support in place, even if it's just a bit of understanding and tolerance - and people can fly! I went through half my life thinking I was shit, failed at numerous jobs, always just about did OK - and got my diagnosis, changed career and retrained and it was absolutely fucking amazing - my team know how I am, and that sometimes I'll just tell them I'm "peopled out" or will move a seat away from something flickery or noisy electric buzzing, and it's just perfectly OK... and I can use it so well to explain things to carers sometimes - I've gone into assess where someone is struggling to cope in a dining room - and pointed out that it's echoey and the acoustics are doing strange things... and no one has noticed it before I mentioned it!

@CoffeeWithCheese In my opinion Chris Packham comes across as very sensitive to people's individual experiences with being autistic. Completely different to the vibe of the McGuiness doc. (Can't stand Paddy McGuiness though so perhaps that affects my judgement!)

Wouldn't say it's overly positive. I think the aim of it was perhaps to highlight the range of difficulties autistic people can experience.

I loved that he quoted the saying "if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person". If there's one thing I can't stand is when people say things such as "My nephew's autistic and he's coping fine at this party" (whilst giving you a puzzled look to imply that your child should be coping too) 😡

Watching it now while I sit and laminate and cut out communication symbols for a session tomorrow - the day centre bit did have me screaming about various other communication approaches, but it's wonderful to see such a lovely day centre setting and the comment about "we learn to speak 20 people's own different languages" is so apt.

I'm very very like Flo in terms of how I present - I taught for over a decade and I come across as being very very extrovert, larger than life, crazy coloured hair and I appear to be supremely confident. It was actually one of my SALT placements where the very experienced and now a good friend/mentor nailed it with that she didn't think that was the genuine me at all and got me bang to rights!

Chris Packham is coming across beautifully in this actually (and normally I do find that, even accounting for his autism, he can be a very abrasive knob) his point about seeing connections right at the start is exactly how I see the world. I can make some very irritating accidental connections between a piece of music and where I was driving when I heard that track ONE time - which is great if it's somewhere beautiful... but a bit crap if it's the Ford dealership off the dual carriageway on the ring road (which has totally fucking ruined one real banger of a song for me)!

I don't think it was over positive at all. It wasn't overly sentimental either, and I credit Chris Packham for that. There was no 'sanitising' of behaviours or clever editing out of physical or verbal tics etc. I'd say it was a calm and realistic picture of various types of autistic experience..

...And to add, as a retired teacher of severely affected autistic children, I was really pleased to see a programme about autism that didn't just focus on highly intelligent verbal autistic people. The children I taught are rarely represented in the media, so my feeling was "at last...!"

Same as someone who works with learning disabilities in an adult context!

Sadly once again I missed a programme I really wanted to watch.

I had worked in the morning and sat watching stuff I did not really want to see on BBC 2 so that I wouldn't miss it. Unfortunately I rarely sleep and tend to nod off when home sitting on my bed. I did it just at the start of the programme. However I did see the last 10 minutes. I do not have the watch again thingy so I do hope at some point it is repeated (never anything I want to watch is! But I am glad there is another episode next week.)

I wouldn't care but I insisted all my friends watch it.

If you notice it is being repeated can you let me know please?

Dd has just texted me angry saying yet again they are perceiving autistic people to be similar. She says its nothing like how she is.
The programme didn't say all autistic people were similar. It emphasised the opposite and said they were all different

I was a bit unsure thinking it may be focused on autism being a superpower.

It was actually really sensitive and honest. It showed how individual autistic people can be and how experiences can be so different.

I was amazed by Murray, he communicated so eloquently for himself and others.

It's on iPlayer if you can access that

Nope! I cannot.