The Cinema

When Little M was about 11 months old I took him to the cinema. He was a bit of a fidget but lasted most of the film. By the time he was 2 he was a cinema veteran. Popcorn was very useful as an aid to keeping him in his seat.



I have tried the same with Tokoroth but even today, aged 38 months, this little fella will not even go inside the auditorium. Even armed with popcorn, Fruit Shoot and Smarties, as soon as we walked into the darkened cinema he was like a cat being lowered into a bath. He almost set off the fire alarm mistaking the panel on the wall for a light switch!

As children half his age filed keenly and quietly in, he sat rigid by the entrance refusing to be coaxed, bribed or manhandled in to see the film. He's small for a three year old but almost impossible to impose your will on without a tantrum that would have Esther Rantzen in your face inside five seconds.

Experiment abandoned, elder siblings left to watch the film, The Tokoroth and I retired to Costa Coffee in Waterstones where I caffeinated and unstressed while he quietly read and chatted happily to himself.

While this may appear to have nothing to do with autism (and it may not) it's just an example of how he is different from his siblings and some other children. It is though a good example of a criterion of autism spectrum disorders : peculiarities of hearing. Many children with autism have been suspected of being deaf at an early stage in their lives. Very few actually have a hearing loss, though they may not respond to their name and appear to be unaffected by audible changes in the environment. Conversely they can be more agitated than their peers by ordinary/loud everyday sounds. The Tokoroth puts a big fat tick in this box.

Although, maybe he'd just read the reviews and knew the film was crap...