Why Does He Do That?

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The blog's got a new look - like it? Loud, isn't it? It's designed to wake me up and kid me that I'm some sort of partying psychedelic hippy during the day. Hopefully this will make the ever-present urge to crawl back to bed, which I've been experiencing over the last - er, ten years - a little less irresistible.

One of the things that causes me to head for the duvet is the rather draining and repetitive question concerning either one or both boys, which circles my head almost daily.

The question is: Why does he do that?

Answers range from:

a) I'm pretty sure that I know
b) I've got a rough idea and have narrowed it down to 3 possibilities
c) I've not the foggiest
d) I've not got the foggiest, but does he have the foggiest either?

Now I'm guessing that I'm not alone here, because most of our correspondence with readers is generally along the same lines.

Any behaviour is tolerable as far as I'm concerned, if I've got a reason for it. Knowing the reason makes it easier to deal with and easier to help as well.

That's why so much of AuKids is geared towards answering the 'Why do they do that?' type of question. We're guessing you think like we do. We don't want to know a bit more about it, or moan about it for two pages. We want to know WHY!

That's why we did an article on visual distortion in our January issue. It's a confusing quagmire of a subject. The deeper you get into it, the less you understand. There are also loads of confident claims about what helps with visual distortion, yet what we came across was that there just isn't enough scientific evidence to back any type of intervention 100%. There's far more written on dyslexia than on the sorts of visual distortion that our kids experience.

What's all the more difficult with pre-verbal kids experiencing visual distortion is that they can't tell you what they see. Consequently you only know if something helps by a change in their behaviour. Even then, how do you know that it's down to the intervention you've given them?

Drowning in research, I nearly gave up tackling visual distortion. Then I came to think about what our readers really want. They want to know WHY.

I came across one paper on the subject that made real sense - Olga Bogdashina's brilliant summary of the sorts of visual distortion that autistic kids can experience. We shortened it, made it easy to digest, and added the best information we could find and some easy ideas to try at home before parting with your hard-earned cash for something more expensive.

We're already onto the next 'Why...?' for April's issue.

Our experts are currently scratching their heads on the subject of mysterious tears. You know, the ones that seem to come from nowhere, seemingly without cause. With other kids, crying is so often an obvious consequence. Not so with ours.

Expert Dr Heather MacKenzie, who lives in Canada, has pointed out that we are in arrears with the Cadbury's chocolate bars we send to her as payment. This is because I keep on eating it.

Off to the shops tomorrow to put that one right...