Son can not bear coats

My first thought was this. Have you tried cashmere? It may be good to buy pure fibres and see which works best. This company is great https://www.cambridgebaby.co.uk/catalog/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=0&keyword=snood&x=0&y=0

My coat is made by HI-GEAR and came from "go outdoors".

It has a detacheable lining/inner coat thingy and they did at least blue and red versions)  

Thanks for enjoying my reply and I wish you son the best. Sure he'll figure it out once he realses that he has to.

If he is anything like me, then it may appear that NOTHING will ever do, after maybe 3 dozen efforts (and you will start thinking that it was a pointless exercise).......until, out-of-the-blue, IT will be found.....and when IT is found......for God's sake, buy multiple units!!

Thank you. I think that might have to be the route we take. The ends of the zips are a massive issue!

Thank you, that's a great suggestion. We've tried neck gators and snoods, so maybe we just need to keep going along those lines.

Thank you, I loved reading your reply! He is pretty good at problem solving, which is why I've let him ride this particular issue out for so long, in the hope he'll find a solution he can work with. This school residential has added urgency though, so I'm grateful for your suggestion, and any others I get. I think I can envisage the coat you mean.

Many thanks!

Assuming the sensitivity only extends to his cheeks and not his jowls (the bit under his cheeks) I can recommend the coat I wear sometimes because it is very deficient at keeping my face warm! I'll describe it further if that sounds of interest.

You have a 12 year old boy, and many of them are natural problem solvers at that age. You may after some thought be able to enlist his co-operation in solving the problem once he sees it as neccesary to solve.

I've been doing a great deal of thinking about the limitations that Autism places on us reaching our potential as human beings.    

I was TOLD (and have not formally verified the information yet, so I count it as not known to be 100% reliable information) that an on spectrum baby will drop his rattle and rather than look for it and pick it up like an NT would, will either cry for it's loss, or get on with a different thing.

I believe I have similar traits in adult life, and my best explanation is that although baby might like or even need the rattle, the rattle was not on his mind at the moment he dropped it, and (in computuing terms) the dropping event does not get automatically "queued" so it effectively "leaves the babys reality" and when he stops whatever he was thinking about and returns his attention to his rattle, it is no longer there, causing a momentary and frightening disconnect between actual reality and what baby thought was reality. (I'm AUDD, and as this formed on the page, I realised I'm probably talking about a niche end of our spectrum, so that mght be useless drivel. 

But the bit about 12 year old boys being natural problem solvers is on the money, at least it was, when I was that age. 

if you neeed it I can provide a pic of my coat, it's basically nylon with a low collar which can be made into a hood if need be. It seals around my neck pretty well to keep the water and draught out, and my core temperature up, but offers no weather rprotection to my head that sticks out like a bean. (I don't know why I picked that simile) I then wear a beenie pulled over my ears in inclement weather. In really horrible weather his cheeks will really hurt if they are anything like mine, which is WHY it's a problem which he will need to be engaged in solving. He can either work out how to protect his face from horrible weather NOW or later on an emergency basis when he meets it head on.

I've had hypothermia myself during a training excercise where some of my troop had to be airlifted out for it, but I was not so far gone that I needed the helicopter, it was a dangerously pleasant experience after I stopped being cold... (They put me on sentry duty lying in a snowdrift then whilst setting up camp forgot about the sentries...)     

I have an aversion to touching nylon and similar synthetic fabrics, it causes a 'knife squeaking on a plate'-like reaction in me. I wear a soft cotton hoodie under any kagoule-type raincoat. The ends of the zips touching my face are also a problem, so I wear a thin 'aviator' scarf of silk or rayon under the hoodie.

I may try to reverse the problem, personally.  I may try to find myself a scarf or cravat of some kind that I REALLY like in that position around my neck so that I am not bothered or concerned about additional over-layers that I really don't like.  This might result in me never wanting to not wear that scarf-thing, but in your case, this may be the lesser of a problem than refusing all coats.

Good luck.