When you start talking about communication with people with severe autism and severe learning disabilities the issue of competence soon arises. Especially when you start talking about people apparently and outwardly severely affected by their autism typing.

I found this out the hard way. In the UK it's common for services such as NHS hands on speech and language therapy (SALT) to be given hands on only if a service user is deemed likely to make an improvement within an allotted time frame (6 weeks seems to be common). So if your child (say) has complex needs they're unlikely to be provides with hands on SALT. If you're lucky you will meet with a SALT a few times a year and he or she will act in a 'consultative' role - i.e. dish out photocopied sheets a.k.a a communication progamme giving advice on how to work with your child. It's a fairly hopeless situation to be honest. Years ago this was the situation we found ourselves in - it was frustrating because Archie was able to work well at home and I felt his complex needs left us floundering and yes I attempted to secure more hands on SALT from the NHS. I was told at the time that he couldn't have SALT because 'he's not capable of anything is he' and I argued (politely but firmly) against this less than helpful point of view. We didn't get anywhere and ended up employing an excellent private SALT to work with us.

I didn't think much more about this - we got on with working on language and communication and the years passed. Fast forward to the term before he was starting school. His first placement was not at the wonderful special school he now attends. He was a at a regular mainstream school and the relationship with staff was something that required some work (on both sides). I was horrified therefore to find out via a friendly professional then working with us that the school had phoned her to ask whether I was 'realistic' about Archie. They had been informed by a SALT who had never met me and had never met Archie that I was 'well known for being a mother in denial'. Thinking back I realised this must have stemmed from my argument with the local SALT service about their lack of hands on pre-school provision.

Apart from being livid that someone who had never met us was doing a good job of spannering my working relationship with the school before we'd even started there I also found the idea that I was in denial rather amusing. I was the first to suspect autism in Archie (at 17 months) and had a year and a half trying to persuade professionals to assess him. At that stage he was diagnosed with 'mild language delay' (and no doubt I was diagnosed as an over-anxious mother - it's fun being a Mum). I do believe in where possible working with professionals, they can help and we now really have a great team of people working with Archie who do understand him and believe in him and listen to us - and helpfully view us as relatively sane.

I  learned the following from this episode:

• If you are working with professionals who only see your child in an artificial clinic setting they may find some of your descriptions of your child's achievements hard to believe. Be careful how you phrase them.Some people will find competence in those with severe autism hard to believe. Any competence.
• If you want to work on something like typing at the moment it is hard (not impossible) to get professional support. More on that and suggestions on where you can find support and advice in future posts.There are however a lot of families beginning to work with things like typing or getting older children who are non-verbal talking - YouTube is a great place to find some.
• Don't get too upset if you become labelled 'in denial' or 'over-anxious' - this seems to be pretty ubiquitous. When I meet other parents we now swap the labels we have received, it's all good for bonding.
• Finally - and this is the big one if your child is doing something really rather clever (typing/writing/some speech - whatever) don't bother telling people (especially professionals) video it and SHOW them. It's your best safeguard against the silly in denial nonsense. I use video a lot now and haven't had a raised eyebrow look in years.