How we coped with our autistic children

Both my sons are autistic, but they are also very different from each other. Our elder child, David, has always been very verbal and when he was four we sent him off to our local primary with nothing beyond the usual nerves parents feel when their child passes through classroom doors for the first time.

But almost immediately, Jane, his mother, started getting daily calls from the school saying David was being unco-operative and refusing to take part in group activities. At pick-up, she was often upset to learn he'd spent much of the day on the naughty step and several times a week the head would call Jane to ask her to come to get him as soon as possible.

I never suspected our son might have autism. I knew he didn't like school and he was very clingy at drop-off. I was certainly shocked to be told by the head that when he was given the choice between rejoining his classmates in a group activity, or staying on the naughty step, David would always choose the latter. But I assumed these were teething problems which, over time, would dissipate.

Jane saw things differently and felt we needed expert advice, so a few months into his first year, we hired an educational psychologist. She failed to diagnose his autism, but did conclude David had complex needs that weren't being met by his school.

Our GP referred us to a so-called social communication group which arranged a series of assessments with a multi-disciplinary team including speech therapists and paediatricians. We decided to also get our younger son, Adam, assessed. His problems were much more obvious. At three, he didn't speak at all, and he spent a lot of time crying.

"When the team diagnosed both our sons as autistic, I was in deep shock. Until then, all I knew about autism was what I had gleaned from the film Rain Man.

The school assigned David his own personal teaching assistant. One of her own children was autistic, so I'm sure the lady had the best of intentions, but this didn't mean she knew how to handle our child. One day, David was playing with a plastic baseball bat which she wanted to take away. He clung on fiercely, they both tugged hard, but David had to let go because she was stronger. The bat sprung back and smashed into her face. She ended up in hospital with a broken nose and he was given an immediate exclusion. The head said he was the youngest child he'd ever excluded.

After that, David went to a school where pupils have mixed special needs; a third are autistic, a third have a physical disability and a third have social and communication issues. There is no doubt the school has restored his confidence. When he left his mainstream primary, David was a very unconfident little boy. The image of his younger self sitting miserably on the school's hall floor while the rest of his reception class performed a play will never leave me.

But although he is now a confident youngster, there has been a trade-off. During his nine years at a special school, David hasn't really been stretched socially or academically. We have no doubt he'd have fared better in a mainstream school where he'd have had the opportunity to interact with regular kids. But after his exclusion, Jane and I were on our own. Our local authority was certainly no help. In 2012, they even tried to send David to an autism-only secondary school. The decision was only amended when we appealed to the tribunal submission.

The educational psychologist was right to describe David's needs as complex. He can be very articulate, but that doesn't mean he always completely understands what he's saying. He is not what people describe as a high-functioning autistic. This summer he will probably sit just one GCSE, in English.

Although we often ask ourselves how we might have made better choices for David, Jane and I think we got things right with Adam. In 2010, we spent most of our savings on a trip to America so Adam, then six, could be assessed by an expert who specialises in an educational programme called Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA).

It proved a turning point. Shocking as this sounds, before we went, my wife feared Adam was some kind of idiot. The programme showed us he actually understands almost everything we say. After that, we were determined to get Adam a place at TreeHouse School in north London, run by the charity Ambitious about Autism, which uses the same ABA method.

We knew if he was to have anything approaching a normal life, it was our only option.

We were right. He finally started there last September and in one year the improvement in his language skills has been incredible. But we had to fight to get him through the door. A year's tuition at TreeHouse costs close to £100,000 a year, four times as much as the local authority paid for his previous school for autistic children.

Most of the parents at his previous school were separated. The pressure of raising autistic children is enormous. Jane and I are still together, but we have literally not been out together since Adam's diagnosis in 2006. We can't trust our boys with anyone, not even my mother, who's pretty much the only visitor to our home.

Adam is so sensitive to noise that if he hears a dog barking, or a baby crying, he'll fly into a tantrum. There is not one whole mirror in our house. Like many autistic children, he is also hyper-sensitive to clothing and when he's at home, we let him run around naked. Family trips to restaurants are also a challenge as Adam's diet basically consists of crackers and potatoes. He loves the French fries at McDonald's, but the sound of the chain's chip pan beeping is so unbearable for him, he'll throw his food in the air when he hears it. So, we always buy take-away meals.

As a child, I did belong to a United Synagogue shul, but since we became parents our contact with the community has been negligible. Not because we've had any bruising experiences, but because we instinctively kept away, thinking we wouldn't be particularly welcome. Maybe we were wrong.