I have to share this story I heard at the world autism day event I spoke at last month... I love the diversity of interests and eccentricities of folk on the spectrum, and I honour the flexibility and extremes that some families undertake to help with these interests. I remember the story one family told me, of how their son, let’s call him Jonny, was extremely interested in all things to do with traffic control – signs, lights, barriers. One day, while visiting friends, the parents noticed their child had gone missing – imagine the concern – the whole household was mobilised looking for the child, they were probably on the verge of calling the police, when the child was found in the backyard of the neighbour. The neighbour was a road worker, and in the backyard, happened to have a railway-crossing boomgate. Jonny sat in the yard staring, mesmerised at the boomgate. The family couldn’t get him to leave. They negotiated a price for the boomgate, and strapped it to the roof of the car and brought it home to their own backyard. “Wow”, I said, “so now you have a boomgate in your backyard?” “Yes”, said dad, rather sheepishly, “the boomgate is right next to the set of traffic lights”.
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 08:44:06 +0000
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