Young man with autism achieves his dream

Scott was born at 33 weeks and had a three-hour operation to correct a stomach defect (Gastroschisis - where the intestines are on the outside of the body). His life was saved by Mr Andrew Stewart at Queens Medical Centre and he came home from hospital at 3 weeks old.

He was a tricky baby, cried a lot and only seemed to settle face down. He reached his physical milestones with ease but struggled with social interaction, speech and play. It became very apparent that he had problems when he started nursery and was diagnosed with autism just six months later.

Scott initially coped with mainstream school with the help of some wonderful teachers and teaching assistants but it became harder as he got older and went to Redgate Special School in Mansfield for his last year of Primary School, then onto Beech Hill Special School and later Portland College. Scott has always found social interaction difficult. He often says that he wished he could 'live in his world all the time as it is much better than the real world'. We found that Scott often has great difficulty explaining how he is feeling and responds angrily when he is struggling. We discovered that he can write down what is wrong much better than he can verbalise.

Scott has enjoyed writing fan fiction for many years, and is very talented at drawing his own version of manga style pictures, but kept voicing his desire to write a book We told him that in order to do so that he needed to come up with an original concept. He started and gave up on a few occasions but last year the idea of a trio of sisters and their supernatural explorations formed and took shape.

After he finished the writing he was desperate to see it in book form and we looked at various options together. We decided that self publishing was the best option and his first novel became a reality via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Scott was overwhelmed when our first copy arrived. Scott will always have autism, and always need support but it has not stopped him striving to achieve his dream and we are incredibly proud of him. The novel can be purchased as a printed copy or via kindle through Amazon.co.uk.