The Transforming Autism Project

Who we are

The Transforming Autism Project (“TAP”) was established as a Charity in May 2017. TAP’s focus is supporting families with young autistic children and its mission is to unlock their full potential through early intervention.

TAP strongly advocates early autism intervention - but not the sort of intervention that treats autism as an illness or disability or aims to modify a child's behaviour.  TAP provides crucial support for families to transform their relationships and environment, in order to optimise their child’s self-esteem and future prospects. 

TAP advocates for autism to be approached with confidence and positivity to truly empower autistic children and their families. Please see our acclaimed TED talk (below) for a deeper understanding of our distinctive and empowering conception of autism

In our experience, families often have concerns that their child might be demonstrating signs of autism but do not know who to speak to or what actions to take. In the UK, getting a diagnosis for autism can often be a long and drawn out process and it is in these crucial months and years that the biggest impact can be had on the development of that child. TAP’s focus therefore is on families who have a child that has been diagnosed with autism, as well as those who suspect that their child might have autism.

The results from TAP’s work have been life changing for those that it has helped and its goal is to support more families.

The help that TAP provides is delivered through its flagship intensive in-home First Steps Programme (for families with autistic children under 4), its new Confident Parenting Workshops, and its Webinars, Videos and Q-CHAT service (which helps parents identify early signs of autism, and was developed together with Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University).  The families that TAP supports have access to all of these services, and we’re exploring further ways we can support families.  We are currently small, and just emerging from our startup phase, so the numbers of families we are supporting through our direct services is small (though our online output has reached many thousands).  We’ve now reached a point where more of the foundations are in place and we’re looking to expand rapidly to make a meaningful and life-changing difference to many more families.  We envisage the appointment of a capable and confident new CEO to be a pivotal part of that development.