Money raised by street collectors today in an effort to raise awareness of autism will go towards making expert trainers available for families with autistic children.

Most therapists have to be brought to the Island and the cost of booking one of the experts ? either from overseas or one of the few on-Island ? can be over $150 an hour.

This limits the scope for many families to gain access to the help they can offer and is one reason why this June the Bermuda Autism Support and Education Society (BASE) intends to hold a workshop allowing families of children with autism to have a free session with an expert to learn how they can help their children and improve their quality of life.

It?s a small gesture but one that BASE founder Trish Crow feels goes some way to providing support in Bermuda for a medical condition that affects to a greater or lesser degree an estimated 600 people.

There are not enough speech and behavioural therapists on the Island to go around and BASE is trying to increase the number of trained therapists by holding workshops and bringing experts to Bermuda, she said.

Two workshops have been organised this year, one on April 26 to be held at Mount Saint Agnes Academy with American psychologist Dr. Rebecca MacDonald and another in June when BASE hopes to offer the free therapist sessions to families with autistic youngsters.

April is autism awareness month and apart from today?s ?tag day? street collection and the workshop in two weeks time, there will be a BASE annual exhibition at the Botanical Gardens from April 20-22 and a ?denim day? at the end of the month again to help raise funds.

Autistic children can live in a world of their own, often not even recognising or acknowledging their parents. They can also display learning and attention challenges.

Mrs. Crow?s three sons have varying degrees of autism. She explained one example of autism that manifests when children are playing is ?scripting? where an autistic child replays scenes from a TV show or film down to minute details of sound and movement but is unable to use their own imagination to create a different play scenario.

Parents can be trained to teach their autistic children to move beyond simply replaying what they remember from films and TV and begin to expand their imagination ? an important step to becoming more integrated with the outside world as they grow older.

But the cost of engaging these expert therapists can be prohibitive to many families. It is not unknown for a family to spend up to $3,000 a month flying in a therapist.

Mrs. Crow said: ?You either have your child left sitting in a corner or you pay that level of money in the hope of allowing them to live a better life.?

This year BASE is aiming to put together suggestions to the Department of Education for ways that can be found to help autistic children with schooling.

Last December a fund-raising walk for BASE attracted 300 walkers and the group will hold another later this year. Mrs. Crow said there is an increasing awareness of autism on the Island as a result of the public events. The denim day this April 28 has expanded from 30 companies and schools being involved to around 60.

Anyone who would like further information about BASE or the autism awareness events lined up this year can contact Mrs. Crow on 535-7277, Paul Lambert on 747-1451 or Thea Furbert at 236-8307.