AN artist whose son had autism contributed one of her drawings to a charity calendar.

Emily Ault, who lives in Archway and has had multiple solo exhibitions of her paintings, donated a drawing of a boy playing with pieces of paper to disability equality charity Scope for their 2024 calendar, Scope in the Picture.

Ms Ault, whose son George responded in a “magical” way to picture books, said: “Pictures are so important for children. I think it’s crucial every child can see themselves represented and included from the first time they open a book.”

She has donated a drawing from sketches she made at the Hayward Adventure playground in Market Road, where she used to take her son.

“They liked this little sketch that I did of a little boy paper flicking because they didn’t have any other pictures which showed an invisible disability or something which is hard to illustrate,” she said.

She explained how for autistic children the world can sometimes “overload” their senses and they need to “zone in” on one small thing as a way of dealing with that.

She added: “Sensory overload is when you just literally can’t cope with all the sounds and sense and visual noise that’s happening around you, so you can sometimes see autistic children just wiggling their fingers in front of their face, because they can do that and just shut everything else off and concentrate on that and it helps.”

She said the calendar was a good way for families to introduce an important conversation around disability.

“If you’ve got a child with disabilities, people are sympathetic, but they sort of feel that you’re ‘other’ sometimes,” she said. “The best thing you can do is invite them around for tea. Just get involved.”

For information about the calendar, visit www.shop.scope.org.uk