Awareness to understanding

Being able to give others hope for the future is the driving force behind father and son team Daniel and Daryl Giles as they take their message of understanding to communities.

Their presentation ‘From Diagnosis to OAM – A Personal Autism Journey’ is heartfelt.

The pair, sharing their personal experience of autism with Wimmera teachers and health professionals, said their talks were always wellreceived.

“Being able to give others hope for the future is a big motivator for us to continue,” Daryl Giles said.

“The most rewarding thing for us has been those families that come up to us at the end of a session, who perhaps have a young primaryage child, and they are often in tears because we have been able to give them hope. “It is really rewarding.” Daniel, who has received an Order of Australia Medal for his voluntary work towards disability in the community, is now one of many self-advocates for autism.

His father said it was great to see progress in community awareness and understanding of autism.

“When Daniel was diagnosed 27 years ago, I had never heard of autism, and now most people have at least heard about it,” he said.

“Advocating is now moving away from awareness to more understanding, and there are so many more self-advocates now.

“You could go to a conference now and instead of it being all professionals there are huge numbers of people with autism, or their parents or siblings, who are presenting.

“I think we have moved quite a lot in that dimension.”