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We try to keep a good line of communication open with our children. It's not always about trying to just teach them every moment, but it's about listening to them and trying to understand them and gain that sense of communication so when they need to talk to someone, they know that we're there.

Kids need to see their world reflected back to them.

Kids don't talk like adults, but kids on the spectrum don't necessarily fall into the same patterns of speaking or have the same interests as other kids their age.

My upbringing is so fundamentally different to my parents'. It must be strange to look at your child who not only speaks with a different accent but has a totally different view of the world.

The worst mistake you can make with children is to talk to them in a condescending, patronising way and think that you can teach them something. You have to understand that it is you who will be learning from them. You have to get into their world and see things from their perspective.

'What can your kids teach you?' Well, I believe something different about kids. We don't own them, they have their own knowledge. From the start you have to make the choice to listen.

Kids learn more from example than from anything you say; I'm convinced they learn very early not to hear anything you say, but to watch what you do.

Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.

I want to encourage kids to speak up, to tell their stories. That is the only way people will know what we have to go through. Believe in yourself. Someone once told me being different isn't bad - different is just different!

Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, some kids are taught at an early age that being different is somehow bad or wrong or worthy of ridicule.