Latest News for Parents & Carers

John Harris on how music helped him connect with his autistic son James. When James was a child, he loved playing songs over and over. I Am the Walrus, by the Beatles. Autobahn, by Kraftwerk. “He hears emotion in music. I know that for a fact,” James’s father the Guardian journalist John Harris tells Helen Pidd.

The financial threat hanging over English councils, as a result of the last government’s decision to mask special needs overspending with an accounting ruse, is made plain in a Guardian investigation that used freedom of information requests to dig into their accounts.

A former guide dog in Stratford-Upon-Avon will celebrate Mother’s Day with three other generations of her family after becoming a great-grandmother. Connie, 13, produced four litters before retiring from the breeding programme at the charity Guide Dogs in 2017.

“Hearing those words was a huge relief in many ways,” says Graham Spencer, a psychiatric research nurse. Graham was 50 when he was diagnosed with autism but he suspected he was neurodivergent for many years beforehand, so it came as “no great surprise” when he was told.

A severely disabled teenager faces an uncertain future after her mother’s application was rejected by the courts to advocate on her behalf. Ruby was diagnosed with a rare chromosome disorder, Idic 15, at just six months old, and needs round the clock care.