New & Confused

Tinyexplorer said:

However lately he he slid in autism denigration and ableist discourse and so just be aware he is no longer the person to turn to first.

Thanks for pointing that out. There are several things I'd take issue in in the video, but I still think it may explain how professionals see autism.

Siena Castellon sounds great at emphasising the positives, so long as the book doesn't raise expectations of meeting Little Mix.

NAS used to run Help! programme that really helped to make sense of the diagnosis. Not sure what the do now, worth checking.  Reading Tony Attwood helped me at the time. However lately he he slid in autism denigration and ableist discourse and so just be aware he is no longer the person to turn to first.

'How to grow up autistic and awesome' by Siena Castellon helped my daughter. It is written by a remarkable teenage girl, so your daughter might relate.

Hi Julie & welcome to the forums. You may also want to post particular questions in the 'Parents & Carers' section.

It's pretty confusing, even in the unlikely even that the discovery of your daughter as autistic is explained by the professionals. Often an NAS moderator comes along and points to pages here like https://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/children/recently-diagnosed.aspx

The idea there of talking about differences sounds good to me, specifically differences in the way we think, and how it takes all sorts to make a world.

Normally I might say visit the library as there are quite a lot of good books for parents and children (like those by Tony Attwood) - not much use right at the moment! Here's quite a good talk by him though:

Oh, and the BBC programme Pablo is very good. It's for younger children, but covers most aspects of autism.  I think all the episodes are on iPlayer: