The father-and-son will speak at Seymour Club on Thursday, May 23.
Daniel was diagnosed with autism when he was 2½.
“The emotions ranged from, ‘now that we know what we’re dealing with, we can get the right information to make a difference’, but there’s also lots of emotions around,” his father Daryl said.
“You know, ‘why us?’ Or maybe, ‘why not us?’
“(There’s) also a bit of a brief grief of the perception of a child that wasn’t normal.”
But although they worried a lot at the time of Daniel’s diagnosis, Daryl said he was proud that Daniel had achieved lots with his unique perspective because of his autism.
“In some cases, it has worked in our favour,” Daryl said.
When Daniel was diagnosed in the early 1990s, there was not a lot of information on autism.
“We didn’t have computers at home,” Daryl said.
“Google didn’t exist, so the information was a lot more limited.
“We relied on Autism Victoria, as it was known then ... to get the information and support.”
Daryl said back then, their family was very supportive despite not understanding Daniel’s condition.
“We’ve got a lot of awareness of autism now,” Daryl said.
“In fact, most people would be aware of it.
“We’re building on understanding and acceptance and inclusion nowadays, rather than awareness.”
At 13 years old, Daniel first presented his experience growing up with autism to educators and families of people with autism.
“When he was 13, the Bendigo Special Development School ran a mini conference for educational support,” Daryl said.
“I asked Daniel to speak at that, and that was his first experience of telling his story.”
“It kind of grew from there the following year.”
Since then, Daniel has spoken in different conferences nationwide, as well as internationally for the first time in 2017 at the International Conference on Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Bhutan.
“He (Daniel) and I went to that together and Daniel spoke a couple of times at that conference,” Daryl said.
“When we were there, we started to talk about collaborating together a bit more seriously.
“Later in 2017, Daniel put in an abstract for he and I to present together at the Asia Pacific Autism Conference in Sydney.”
That same year, Daniel was named on the Queen’s Birthday honours list, awarded the Order of Australia Medal for his service to disability and the community.
Daryl said finding out that Daniel was to received that award was surreal.
“I’m super proud of Daniel, very overwhelmed that all his advocacy and his work that he’d done to make the world a better place for people with autism and disability has received that sort of recognition on the national platform,” Daryl said.
This is the first time the Giles family will be presenting in Seymour and the father and son are very excited to share their story.
“We’re really excited to bring our story to the people of Seymour and surrounding districts and hopefully make a difference for their journey,” Daryl said.
Tickets for the event are available at From Diagnosis to OAM – A Personal Autism Journey - Seymour Tickets, The Seymour Club, Seymour | TryBooking Australia
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