The Autistic Me

Tuesday's TV choice is The Autistic Me, BBC Three, 9pm

In a generally sensitive portrait of three young men, The Autistic Me shows autism is not a one-size-fits-all disorder...

GIVEN the dazzling inability of some men to communicate, you could be forgiven for imagining they might be a little autistic. But being ­uncommunicative and ­socially inept doesn’t even begin to cover the real thing.

Tom, 15, attacked his father with a knife (“I was just trying to scare him off,” he explains). Twenty-something Oli has high-functioning ­autism but can’t get a job. He loved a placement stamping books at the British Library, but ­already thinks he’ll never find that high again. And Alex, 24, is looking for love, and he’s not a bit picky. He’ll consider any hair colour, ethnicity, or size up to 6ft5in, so long as she’s a non-smoker.

The abiding image we have of autism is Dustin Hoffman’s overblown turn as tic-ridden misfit Raymond in the film Rain Man, but The Autistic Me presents three very different young men growing up with the developmental disorder that affects one in 100.

Autism is characterised by poor communication, ­impaired social interaction and repetitive behaviour, and those in its grip can perceive the world as a strange place.

Like many of us, Alex from Brighton, who has a form of Asperger’s (one of the milder conditions on the autistic spectrum), trawls the web looking for his ideal woman. He finds a girl and ­everything seems to indicate a positive outcome until they meet… and sit in silence.

We know how desperately Alex wants a girlfriend, but he finds it virtually impossible to make eye contact, or speak to her. Yet, even with the odds stacked against them, the pair are soon mooning over each other.

If only things were going as well for Tom. Thomas from Kent has bleach-blond hair and a volatile temper, sleeps in late, plays guitar, has rock posters on his wall and Led Zeppelin albums scatter his room. All perfectly normal teen stuff, until mum lets us into a ­mortifying secret. She digs out an old Sooty video and tells us that this is what gives him the most pleasure.

This is where the difficulty lies: Tom is desperate to grow up, but is not behaving in a grown-up manner, and our hearts go out to him. He says: “When I’m in the car and I can see a group of people playing ­football and having fun together – I’ve never ­actually done that.”

Engaging and sometimes distressing, this doc still ­handles its subjects with care. That is, until glum, jobless ­Oli is filmed sat in his kitchen with Mad World playing on the embedded soundtrack – not the most sensitive ditty to play on a programme about mental disorders.