BBC1 six part drama "The A Word" airs later this month

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My Mum's been watching the show, and she cried during the first episode when the parents were told he had Autism. That's because she's been through this twice, for me and my brother. I haven't seen the show properly so I don't have much of an opinion on it, but I think that as well as Autistic children being represented, we also need more Autistic teenagers and adults on TV. I've seen people say that Autism and Aspergers don't go away when you grow up, and that's true, you're stuck with it for your whole life, meaning that when you get older, life only gets harder, because it's easy to get away with being weird as a child, but as an adult, it's something that is not as socially acceptable.

My parents pulled me out of the self contained classroom when I was eight and my mom also didn't want to send me to a school for kids with learning disabilities because she wanted me to learn social skills, not think that inappropriate behavior I see is normal behavior. I was even mimicking kids in my self contained classroom which was why she got me out of there and never again did she want me in special classes. She didn't even like the social skills group I was in because of other kids so I can understand why parents wouldn't want their autistic child around other autistic children and why someone would think that autistic children shouldn't be monitored by autistic adults. They want them to learn appropriate social skills. But then again even autistic adults can act appropriate, look at Temple Grandin. I have never see her go autistic in public.

I live in the UK and I missed the first episode but saw the rest. I really enjoyed it. Admittedly it was more about the adults around Joe than the boy himself, especially his mother who simply wouldn't accept that her son has autism and seemed to believe that any recognition of it would deepen his autism, ignoring it might make it go away. His grandfather was similar but not as bad. They didn't seem to communicate with him very well. On the other hand his older sister and a young Ukrainian woman (can't remember her name) made far fewer demands on him and accepted Joe as he is and got along with him better. The message I got from this is that some NT's are far more bothered about our autism than we are, I suppose a lot of parents have some preconceived idea of what makes a 'perfect child'. I'd say give the programme a go, keep an open mind. I think the programme makers tried to show how a family might react to autism (Lets not forget that this is a drama, not a documentary) and many families might recognise themselves in it.