If I see another news item with reference to the correlation between parental mental illness and autistic offspring, I’m afraid I shall have no choice but to climb on my soapbox and pontificate. What these boffins seem to have missed is that the busyness of parents with autistic children is the determining factor. If we parents could halve or even quarter our busyness, our mental health would soar.

I would like a volunteer Boffin, just one, to nip along and spend an hour or two in the bosom of our family. I’d suggest that a Saturday morning would be ideal. How about 9 until 11? During the first hour, Boffin would need to facilitate play with the offspring.

One hour later, spouse and offspring would depart to give Boffin and me a break. “Have a rest, put your feet up. See you in an hour!” I would direct Boffin’s attention to the war zone that is our home, with several mountains of discarded toys as evidence of his failure to engage his paultry play skills effectively. I would offer Boffin a choice, sit down and relax or clear up? I would hazard a guess that Boffin would have a hard time relaxing in devastation because a high percentage of those scientific types have a smattering of OCD tucked up their snowy white cuffs. I would startle Boffin with a few facts and figures.

On my own, it will take me 55 minutes to clear up and provide five minutes of respite thereafter. Alternatively, we could use our team building skills and work together and thus enjoy a joint twenty seven and a half minute rest. If we pulled all the stops out, cut corners and made do with ‘good enough’ we might have even longer. If Boffin was unable to make the relevant calculations speedily enough because his executive function was a bit rusty, I would depart, leave him to contemplate, and go and play in the garden on my own.

"Cheers dears"