A Mother's Perspective

'I think it's important to reflect on the role of 'non-professional' families and carers and their contribution to knowledge. Too often there is a disproportionate bias associated with terms such as 'scientific' and 'personal'.  (Laura Malacart, YES! statement page)

Here you can listen to clips of the interviews with Caroline.

‘At 15-16 months I started to notice a difference…  he was interested in exploring the world physically rather than through me or people around him… by 18-19 months we went through a phase of three days... by the end my toddler was a different child’. 



‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, I think your son has autism… I felt I was the only mum going through this… before I knew it, we had a referral to see a specialist pediatrician and an educational psychologist’. 

‘lots of assessments on social interactions and imagination… the diagnosis was in phases… at three he would have been able to go to a special school… the doctor sat me down…then you leave the doctor’s room thinking, now what?’ 



‘I was told once that you become a statistic, in that lots of marriages split up… I knew I had a mission in life that I had to support Kyle as best as I could… so I read a lot…’ 


‘He didn’t want to learn any language… he would take my hand and take me to the object… I personally believe there was a battle between where he was and this social world where we live’. 

‘Maybe science fiction is his interest, but no it wasn’t that, it was the music that was his interest’. 

 ‘A few years later we moved down to Cornwall and Kyle’s world changed… he was angry… he wanted the radio on… I felt that perhaps it was because it was live… ‘  

‘It was also an outlet for Kyle to be able to express how he was feeling… he would  choose songs that reflected his mood… I could see the changes… but autism is like playing a game of chess’. 


‘It was hard to explain to him what we were going to do…Kyle was nervous but it didn’t’ take long before he realised that it was a fun thing to do… we ran through the song three times and each time he sang it perfectly… recording a song is not easy’. 

‘It was kind of weird to hear him sing sentences… I hadn’t been used to listening to Kyle… singing enables him to make that human connection’.


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