The Four-Tier System: When Support Comes Too Late
The four-tier system is being discussed as a form of early intervention in SEND support. But many children don’t struggle early. Some cope through primary school and only begin to struggle later, often in secondary school when demands increase sharply. A system that requires children to move slowly through tiers risks delaying help until real damage has already been done. This blog explores why waiting for repeated failure is not early intervention — and why parents need to understand what may be coming.
When Motivation Is Missing: Understanding Low Motivation in Children and Adults with ADHD or Autism
“Low motivation isn’t laziness — it’s brain wiring.”
When dopamine doesn’t fire in the usual way, starting tasks can feel impossible for ADHD and autistic people. This blog explains why — and what genuinely helps.
Stop Moving the Goalposts: Why PDA Isn’t an Excuse for Poor Behaviour
Pathological Demand Avoidance is increasingly used to explain any challenging behaviour. But when PDA becomes a catch-all label, it stops helping those who genuinely experience it. This blog explains what PDA really is, why language matters, and why understanding behaviour means looking at the ‘why’, not excusing the ‘what’.
When Offence Replaces Recognition: The Cost to Neurodivergent Children
When professional discomfort with language delays early recognition of autism and ADHD, families pay the price. This blog explores how clarity, not comfort, is essential for timely support and better outcomes.
When Alexithymia and Interoception Differences Look Like Narcissism
Emotional distance is often labelled as narcissism, but for many people it reflects alexithymia and interoception differences. Understanding this distinction can change relationships.
Why So Many Women Are Now Being Diagnosed With Autism and ADHD
Women are not suddenly becoming autistic or developing ADHD.
A generation of women was overlooked, misread, and forced to survive quietly until modern life removed the structures that helped them cope. This blog explains why diagnoses are rising now – and why this is overdue recognition, not overdiagnosis.
Awakening the Brain to Interact with Our Environment
Understanding how the brain processes sensory information is key to learning, behaviour, and daily life. This blog explores how our senses keep the brain alert and engaged with the world around us.
Understanding Language Disorders: More Than Just a Speech Issue
Language disorders affect how people understand and use language, not intelligence. This blog explains the types, signs across ages, and how support can help.
Explaining Social Fatigue to Friends or a Partner
Social fatigue isn’t rudeness or lack of interest. For autistic and ADHD people, it’s mental exhaustion after socialising. This blog explains how to communicate limits without guilt.
Executive Function in Autism & ADHD – Same Skills, Different Weak Spots
Executive functioning skills are the same in autism and ADHD, but the weak spots are often different. This blog explains flexible thinking, working memory, and inhibitory control in a clear, real-life way.
Autism Is Not a Brand: The Hidden Dangers of Turning Difference into a Product
Autism is increasingly being packaged and sold under the banner of representation. This blog explores the dangers of profiting from autism, particularly when narrow portrayals of autistic girls risk shaping identity, increasing masking, and causing real harm to children.
ADHD and Autism: Different Ways the Brain Regulates Action, Attention, and Emotion
ADHD and autism aren’t behaviour problems. They are differences in how the brain regulates starting, stopping, switching, and emotion. This blog explains those differences in a clear, compassionate way for parents and adults trying to understand themselves.
For Nearly 3 Years, SENCOs Can Hold Their Role Without Training – No Wonder ADHD Kids Are Failed
SENCos can hold their role for nearly three years without mandatory training. This article examines how that gap contributes to ADHD children being misunderstood, mislabelled, excluded, and ultimately failed by an education system that hasn’t evolved to meet neurodivergent needs.
Understanding Social Communication and Its Challenges for Those Who Are Autistic
Social communication is about far more than spoken words. For autistic people, navigating non-verbal cues, conversation rules, and social expectations can be exhausting — and often misunderstood. This article explores why social interaction can be so challenging and how we can offer better support.
Criminalised, Not Criminal: Reflections on Autism and the Justice System
A reflection on autism and the criminal justice system, exploring how autistic behaviour is often misunderstood as intent, and the consequences when reasonable adjustments are not made.
Intense Emotions and ADHD
Emotional regulation is one of the most misunderstood parts of ADHD. This post explores seven key truths about why emotions feel so intense, what’s happening in the brain, and how understanding this can improve daily life and relationships.
Understanding Misdiagnosis: From Borderline Personality Disorder to Autism
Many autistic adults — especially women — are misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder before autism is ever considered. This post explores why that happens, the harm it causes, and how lived experience is often misunderstood by professionals.
Seven Nervous Systems Under One Roof
Many parents worry their child “only does things if there’s a reward.”
For many autistic and ADHD children, this isn’t laziness, manipulation, or bad parenting — it’s neurological.
This post explains why motivation works differently and how to support it without shame.
We Are Not the Puzzle
A reflection on why the puzzle piece symbol has never sat right with me — and why I don’t see people as the puzzle. Life is.
“Are We a Dysfunctional Family? Or Just Struggling With Tone of Voice?”
Are we really a dysfunctional family, or are we struggling to be heard? This blog explores how tone of voice, stress, neurodivergent communication, and nervous system overload can make everyday family interactions feel harder than they need to be.