On Thursday's 'Déise Today', Damien was speaking to Selina Deady, mum to 5-year-old Kayden who is a young boy with autism.
Selina was on the show to highlight the fact that a lot of people around the city don't know how to react or are aware of the condition.
Selina brought up two instances, one good and one bad which showed how some people are very open to the condition and another where people who did not know enough about it, upset Kayden even more and also upset Selina, as well as people, walk past saying upsetting things to her.
An instance Selina says that was quite pleasant for her and also for Selina was when she was out in town, and the mobile train unit came along, Selina explains that "Kayden loves bright lights and the man blew the horn on the train that got Kayden all hyped up, the driver stopped the train and calmly spoke to Kayden and really made his day, it was a great experience for him".
A bad experience for her though was again, "Kayden got distracted by some bright lights and wandered into a shop and took something off the counter, he doesn't understand that you can't just do that".
The two shop ladies were very un-co-operative with her and "wanted Kayden to leave the shop even though by this point he was sitting on the floor, clearly distressed".
She is hoping that people will become more aware of children with autism and react better to the situation.
Selina was also talking about how, Kayden has been diagnosed with autism by a psychologist, but they are waiting for an official medical diagnosis which they had an appointment for in August, but this was deferred. This leaves Selina in a situation where she might have to wait another couple of years until they can get an official confirmation to say that Kayden is autistic.
If you want to listen to that interview, you can just click here.
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/deise-today-20th-june-selina-deady-about-her-autistic-son-caden-and-how-to-deal-with-autistic-kids?in=wlrfmwaterford/sets/deise-today-2019
If you want to listen to the full version of 'Déise Today', you can just click here.
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/deise-today-thursday-20th-june-2019?in=wlrfmwaterford/sets/deise-today-2019
