Autism

This film focuses on Rose Fernandes who cares for her mother, who has dementia, and her daughter, who is autistic and has learning difficulties. She uses direct payments to pay for people to help with her daughter’s care, but for her mother she relies on agency staff. She finds this method tough as the agency staff only come at certain times, leaving her to care for her mum alone throughout the night. Meanwhile, her daughter Crystal receives much more flexible care, but direct payments leave her with a lot of paperwork to do. Note: This film is no longer available.

Better diagnosis has played a key role in identifying the children and adults with autistic spectrum disorder. Current figures estimate that 500,000 families throughout the UK are affected. And because autism is a spectrum disorder, it affects people at differing levels of cognitive functioning with three distinct areas of impairment.