Mum’s mission to put autism on the run

WHEN Susan Crawford’s son Tomás was three years old, his autism, diagnosed a year earlier, began to show itself in more ways than one.

“I realised he had difficulties in the area of movement skills,” she says, explaining that Tomás had problems with running, catching, throwing, and jumping — all the things that children do every day. Finer movements like holding a pen or fork and tying buttons and zips were also problematic.

“I quickly realised that these problems were inherent to the condition of autism.”