Autism Awareness Blog Hop 2020

My autism fact for Autism Awareness Month – Dogs have been shown to improve autistic children’s quality of life, independence, and safety. The presence of a trained dog can reduce aggressive behaviour, calm the child, and serve as a link to the child’s community.

As a parent I loved cooking with my kid when he was growing up, cookies and cakes were the order of the day as a preteen, and once he was a teen we moved on to meals. He enjoyed it so much that he took it as an exam subject and I spent two years spending far too much money on weird and wonderful chillies, since the focus of his cooking was often Mexican food.

But what if my child had autism, would I still have been able to enjoy the chaos that was teaching him to cook. The simple answer is... yes.

Food can be an issue for some autistic children, so having a hand in making their meal can encourage them to eat it. Motor skill limitations, following directions, sensory aversions, and strong likes and dislikes of certain foods can all be challenges that will need to be overcome with patience, creativity, and possibly a detailed list of instructions. But the rewards can be much farther reaching than getting them to eat a meal. Learning to cook provides confidence, independence, an opportunity to get involved with family and community, maybe even the chance of a job.

Many of my books involve food as flirtation. I planned to run a giveaway of one of those but then I realised I can't think of a single one where food isn't offered up in some significant way. So winners choice of a book from my backlist.


a Rafflecopter giveaway


Link to the masterpost of all stops on the blog hop http://rjscott.co.uk/autismbloghop2020