Access by Various artists

Awesome, thanks Russell. I will pass this on to folks who sorely need as much support as they can get.

Awesome, thanks Russell. I will pass this on to folks who sorely need as much support as they can get.

Excellent. Note also the link to that Facebook group.

Great book thanks Russell and I hope Jimmy’s short video on autism goes far and wide. Every person with autism is different but there are also certain similarities including parents needing support. So that Autism in New Zealand Facebook page is a great resource (and thanks to Kris for moderating it). I wish it had been around when we were starting out. At that time the NASC referred us to Autism NZ and gave the name of a real person from the local committee. That committee was very supportive and useful for information sharing but I don’t think such committees exist any more. There are several autism specific Facebook pages but this one particularly is wonderful and very NZ specific. Of course you have to have access to a computer, and preferably broadband, which not all parents do, and local libraries can have very expensive charges.

Yes, Russell, school libraries still exist in many schools. No targeted funding from central government, so dependent on school budgets, but many schools realise the worth of libraries. School librarians have a professional organisation called SLANZA. Currently they are fighting the National Library’s plans to stop sending out real books to schools for specific teaching projects.

Link to petition

http://www.actionstation.org.nz/libraries

Also a Labour Party one on same topic

http://action.labour.org.nz/kids-books?utm_campaign=150204_kidsbks1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nzlabour

I was successfully diagnosed and treated in 1994 by a private consultant clinical psychiatrist commissioned by my employer as I was engaged in official secrets at that time – he was very informative about what I had and it was like a light was switched on in my head and my performance at work rocketed so much I was asked to coach others of my ilk in my profession, or suspected as such,which was all of them, and promoted 3 years on the trot while I helped those others cope with the news. They all retired after I negotiated terms of severance for them, leaving me as the only member of our society so now I own its internet domain, and am its CEO and MD and developing it as a haven for auties/aspies as it has traditionally been since the Norman Conquest.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-adrian-thomas-esq-mciht/

Facsinating, David. How did you find this site, by the way?

As I noted in the review, the protagonist in the book, Kahu, is is quite verbally able. So there’s a job to be done yet in enhancing understanding of non-verbal autistic kids.

Suzanne Warburton made this video about her son for his start at kindergarten, and gave me permission to post it here. Great idea, great kid:

That is wonderful. We talked to Lucia's class at school when she was older than that, but should have probably done it earlier - children respond well when they are given information.

Isn't is disgusting and disgraceful that school libraries are an optional extra... something Bill English likes to describe as "nice to have but not essential". Aotearoa is a rich country which can afford bloated salaries for politicians and their ilk and obscene rewards for money-shufflers, corporate criminals (yet to be detected), millionaire yachties and movie moguls. That list could become very long. Perhaps a little of our money realised through the underhand privatization of state houses could be used to help poorer kids get something good to read

BBC Radio 4 is currently broadcasting two interviews about autism (by John Harris, respectively with Simon Baron-Cohen and Penny Andrews) in the series One to One. Podcasts are/will be available here.

A rally against the library cuts has been organised for next Thursday 26th at 4 pm outside the National Library