My son Thomas has Autism and as expected finds many things very difficult to understand which makes life that little bit harder as a family. He is the happiest and friendliest little boy you could meet and it is guaranteed that he would put a smile on anybody’s face.

As a mum I have tried to help him understand daily situations that we would almost certainly take for granted.

Thomas has a love of reading books after teaching himself to read even though he couldn’t communicate with us as he didn’t speak until he was four years old.
His love of his iPad had taught him words and pictures and when he was able to verbalise, it was amazing to hear him reading from a book

Due to his love of reading I have created stories about Thomas where I have used him and his beloved comfort blanket as the main character. I have tried to use situations such as his trip to the hairdresser and dentist, which have been extremely traumatic experiences for him, and have turned these situations into magical tales with him as the main star.

I originally set out with these stories printed on A4 paper which I kept at home but then decided to put it into a printed book so that he could keep and read himself. I funded the self publishing of his book called ‘The Adventures of Thomas and Blanket’ which is through Amazon, and to see him reading and understanding the stories was worth all the time and effort in the world. This book has helped Thomas greatly in understanding these situations and he no longer becomes distressed when visiting his hairdresser, who also stars in his book, although we are still working on the dentist trips but I suppose we can’t have it all eh

I am overwhelmed at the response as we have sold over 100 copies of the book through Amazon with some sales as far as Europe which is a wonderful thought knowing that other families have found our book a benefit for their child.

I don’t admit to being an amazing author as I am just a ‘Mam’.

‘The Adventures of Thomas and Blanket’ has even been raised with officials in the Welsh Assembly Government who have overall policy lead on Autistic Spectrum Disorder in Education after we sent a copy to Kirsty Williams Cabinet Member. Again another achievement if something did ever come if it

I wanted to share our story and our books as there may be someone who also has the same fears and perhaps Thomas and his blanket may help them understand that little bit more, just by reading his magical adventure stories.

This is a link to a local news article for you to read too:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/mother-whose-son-autism-decided-12412893

Thank you for reading and I hope you have enjoyed hearing about our story xx