anybody else disappointed with the A word?

An interesting analysis, recombinantsocks. 

I watched the first programme and wasn't impressed, however since reading some comments on here I decided to give it another chance and have now watched episodes 2, 3 and 4.

Although I'm an aspie, I have emotional empathy (an ability to feel the painful and negative emotions of others).  I used to work with children who had specific learning difficulties and was told I was very sensitive to their needs. However I cannot feel any empathy at all for Joe - I don't know if this is because the child is acting and so is not really suffering with the problems autism can cause? I find the constant playing of music and singing along really annoying too - I have to keep muting the sound on the TV. 

I was confused as to why the child was wandering along a road on his own at first, then later I realised it seemed to be a habit which he did early in the morning before anyone else got up. But the mother seems to be quite protective of her child and quite a controlling personality, so why doesn't she lock the doors at night for his safety? 

I did identify with the obsessive behaviour of the mother and her need to feel that her child wasn't going to be treated as "different" at school, but I couldn't understand her inability to learn some of the strategies the speech and language therapist was using and practice these with Joe - she just seems to expect other people to "cure" him, whereas I believe that if I was in that situation I would do my utmost to learn how to be an "expert" in that field and so keep control of the situation. 

I hope this programme will identify other people who are on the spectrum and the different ways it can affect people. Otherwise I fear it will have been a bit of a waste of time. 

NAS7937 said:

The "Refrigerator mums" schtick was used to blame women for their child's autism. It should be chucked in the bin where it belongs. Most autistic women make good and loving parents and women don't deserve to be told that their behaviour is the origin of this sad old theory which has mysogynistic overtones.

My understanding of the Refrigerator Mum theory was that people observed that some autistic kids had parents who lacked empathy. They made the incorrect attribution that it was the autistic mother's behaviour that resulted in an autistic child. In all likelihood the autistic parent passes the autism to the child genetically but then a big factor, in how the child develops, is down to the home environment that the autistic parent creates. An autistic child will often be influenced by a potent mixture of nature plus nurture that are both influenced by autistic coding in the genes.

At that time it often fell to the mother to do most of the parenting and it is quite likely that an absentee autistic father would have less influence on a child's environment than an autistic mum who was home based and much more influenctial in the child's behaviour and development.

Autistic mums or dads who are aware of their autism are much less likely to be bad parents but I cannot avoid the likelihood that some bad parents are actually bad because of the autism that they are unaware of. In hindsight, as a parent who was unaware of my autism until my children got into their 20s, I would have done things differently when I was helping to bring them up when they were children. There is no point laying blame at anyone's door. I don't blame my parents for my upbringing and I don't blame myself for not being a brilliant parent myself. I look for explanations and the elements of truth that are often to be found in old and inadequate scientific theories.

The A Word is a tragedy, it is about a set of characters who are programmed to do the things that they are doing in blind ignorance of the hidden drivers in their own behaviour. I expect the causal mechanisms to be revealed in more detail as the series progresses and the gory reality of an unaware autistic family is revealed piece by piece. Hopefully, they will end the story with a lot of revelations and reconciliations and they will all live happily ever after.

yes and no in equal measures.

it is better than most we see about autism .I  suppose now most people will say oh like that boy on the A word not oh like him in rainman when you tell someone your child has autism.

Fingers crossed for that twist...

I feel compelled to keep watching so I can witness what everybody else is seeing and give another perspective...oohh but it is getting difficult...

yes, yes, yes. So frustrated and disappointed. Billed as a typical family struggle with high functioning autism I'm finding it anything but typical and like the OP I'm wondering what the impact will be on mums already struggling with society's misconceptions and judgements

So many infuriating characters and almost all of them could be on the spectrum. There's bound to be a twist in the end, so let's see. I feel sorry for Joe's sister.

I think you might be missing the punch line of the programme. Joe is by no means the only autistic person featured in the story. His family has several members on the spectrum, Margaret who is the expert who is identifying Joe's needs may well be on the spectrum, etc etc. The storyline is developing and I am warming to it slowly (I struggle with identifying who is who and I also will not get a lot of the sublety but I can see a lot of myself as a child in Joe)

The programme has had extensive input from NAS see http://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/media-centre/news/2016-03-29-a-word.aspx

"Refrigerator mums" are sometimes autistic themselves so the child who is autistic, through genetic inheritance, may also have an affected childhood from a parent who struggles with empathy and sympathy.