Mum of autistic Darlington teenager calls for more education for families and schools
18 year-old Sam Coutts was found dead at college six weeks ago
A Darlington mum whose autistic son was found dead in the toilets of his college is hoping more education will be given after an autism diagnosis to families, schools, and colleges.
This morning we heard from Kirsten Coutts about her son 18 year-old Sam's struggles with being bullied.
Now, she's hoping there'll be more guidance as she says she had to do a lot of the research herself following Sam's diagnosis at 14.
Kirsten said: "I think that most parents with autistic children tend to find it's a fight. I think if children try and integrate, even if they're struggling, I think they just think it's easy and to let them get on with it. You're given the diagnosis and then off you go. They leave you to it. They don't offer you support, they don't offer you advice, they don't offer you signs to look for.
"I only knew the basic things really about finding it difficult to socialise but he did have friends. I think, what I did learn myself, nobody taught me, was the fact that he didn't find it easy to just integrate himself. I think he sort of always sat on the fringes of things.
"I think you're left a lot to learn unless there are really significant issues with neurodivergency where perhaps they don't engage or they're non-verbal. I think if they're sort of high functioning like Sam was, I think people just think they can cope and they can deal with mainstream and they can get on with it.
"Sam went through phases of talking. I think because he knew that he was an adult it made him feel like he shouldn't or shouldn't need to talk as much. I would try and make him talk to me and certainly the Friday before he passed away he talked to me about a couple of little bits and pieces about the way he was feeling. We talked it all through but he didn't tell he felt like that.
"If you place somebody with autism in a situation where they become reliant on something and they have a routine, and you suddenly say to them one day 'sorry, it's gone' they don't know what to do with that and they can't cope with that, and so I think that that's testament a certain level of understanding but not really.
"I think it's really important that people learn that lesson about autism because yes sometimes things do have to change, yes sometimes things aren't always possible, but you can't just pull the rug out from under a child's or an adult's feet in that way and expect them to get on with it because they just can't compute that at all, and that's perfectly fine because it's just a different personality trait."