Visitors to our website will have seen the picture gallery where we feature drawings and paintings that have been sent in by parents and their children. Our thought now is that we should open this area up perhaps as a childrens’ communication and expressive area available to any autistic child or his/her siblings. This place would be your place, where your child could find a vehicle to expose his/her creative work. We would select and reward some productions for their uniqueness, promoting their sharing to a wider audience in forms of calendars, notelets, greetings cards, wrapping paper.
To assist in our selection of drawing, we propose to have a jury composed of a renowned Scottish artist, 2 autistic adults and you as parents and friends voting. A selection of 5 drawings will be presented at the Scottish Parliament at the reception organised by ATT for Autism Awareness day.

Beautiful drawing made by Harrison.

Creative Minds

Earlier descriptions of behaviours seen in autism indicates that individuals with autism have limited imagination (e.g. Wing 1979, Jordan, 1996). This is thought to affect the child’s play skills as well other forms of creativity, be it in writing, drawing or music.

We feel this grossly misrepresents the incredible creativity and abilities seen in many individuals with autism. For example in a group of 60 children seen at the ATT clinic, we found that just over 50% of them display some forms of pretend play. Incredible drawing and musical skills are also often seen.

We include below a few examples of some artistic work done by individuals with autism.

Six a.m. Morning Walks

Since I was up from four a.m. on Wednesday and looked like a brand new charged battery by quarter to six, mother took me out for a six a.m. morning walk. She hoped I would slow down.

And again on Tuesday, since I was wide -awake from four and had the similar sort of motivation, mother took me out for another six a.m. morning walk.
By Friday I got used to six a.m.
Today, on a Saturday, six a.m. morning walk is an old habit.

Since we are walking everyday at six a.m., I am beginning to form an opinion about it. Six a.m. is getting built up within me as a process that includes the sound of my footsteps on the streets, casual cats sitting in the middle of the streets, mysterious looking trees that seem to hide their staring eyes somewhere in patches of darkness and of course those street lamps that light up certain parts of the street and foot paths in their conservative manners.

The process called six a.m. includes a certain shade of morning that I would never have experienced within the walls of my home. My nostrils breathe in and out the somber silence and the shade of early morning as the light from the eastern sky tries to push away the reluctant dark patches in their silent battle.

It makes me feel defensive about darkness.

The world looks so much simpler without those busy colours and the dynamics of movements that future time of the day would reveal, making the world a vast field of confusion. Perhaps only those cats can understand. Couldn’t the world be one long street with lamp posts on either side?

Six a.m. shows a perfect world where all one needs to do is walk under one lamp post to another wondering what is in the mind of that cat who just moved under one of those last patches of darkness that is still holding up against the morning.

I leave some of my Titoism there for the cat to discover.