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Here's an interview Keith did about his daughter and autism....
Pop and soap star fights for autistic daughter
LONDON, UK: Keith Duffy, star of one of the leading British TV soap operas, "Coronation Street," also spent six years with the pop band, Boyzone - but only one performance really means anything to him: the day his daughter, Mia, burst into song.
Her rendition from the musical, "Annie," wasn't exactly word perfect but for this three-year-old it was a remarkable achievement. Because Mia is autistic and can barely say "Daddy."
"It cracked me up," says Keith, "to hear her happily chirruping away. When you have an autistic child, every day is another shock, another obstacle. Yet as she proved, it can equally be another lovely surprise. She's actually a very happy little girl, and that's where I get my sanity."
For a man who has witnessed the craziness of life in a boy band and made the quantum leap to soap stardom, he does seem remarkably grounded. Something he puts down to his Dublin roots, wife, Lisa, and the fact that as the parent of an autistic child he knows his priority must be her future.
"I'm acutely aware," he says, "that we've got to make Mia's life secure and, more importantly, independent."
Like any dad, Keith, 30, can remember distinctly the elation he felt after his second child was born, a sister for son Jordan, now seven.
"You hold this perfect, new-born baby in your arms," he says, "and you feel such joy and have so many hopes for her future. To learn, after a year, that her life won't be like any other little girls' and that she'll never wear a wedding dress is hard to describe."
The blow came when the couple realised their daughter wasn't responding to noise as Jordan had done and could be deaf.
"We took her to a renowned hearing specialist called Sister Lydia," recalls Keith, "who did the tests, then told us quietly, 'Your daughter's not deaf.' That was the first hint that Mia might be suffering from autism. When we left and got into the car I couldn't look at Lisa, I couldn't bear to see her pain."
Because awareness and diagnosis of autism have increased radically over the past decade, the couple were aware of what it meant. They had even given her single inoculations rather than the combined MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) jab, which some believe may be linked to the condition. But neither of them could have imagined what lay ahead.
"What we discovered," says Keith, "is that, despite progress, this world is a f****** disgrace. You have to fight for everything. The only way we could get Mia diagnosed was to pay, but it shouldn't be that way. We could afford it but what about all those families who can't?
"The perceived wisdom is that the earlier these kids receive special teaching, the better their chances are to improve. What chance is there for those forced to wait years just to be diagnosed? You have to remember that, in an autistic child's world, every noise and sound is amplified leaving them frightened and frustrated. What they desperately need is behavioural analysis and schooling, but there are so few places."
Always a determined charity fund-raiser, Keith, along with other parents, turned building an extension for autistic schoolchildren at Dublin's Scoil Eoin into a mission.
We fought the government, raised money and badgered anyone who would listen," he says. "Mia's the youngest one at the school but she's coming on in leaps and bounds. In many ways it's hardest on the parents and other siblings. What constantly astonishes me is the reaction of my son. He's amazing with her, so gentle, soft and considerate. Everything little boys aren't supposed to be. I heard a friend say to him, 'Your sister's stupid, she can't even talk.' To his credit, he replied: 'My sister's a very special little girl.'
"What's hard to deal with is the thought she'll have this for the rest of her life, and occasionally, when I hear my goddaughter, who is also three, chattering away, I feel a pang that Mia will never be like that. But you know, everything happens for a reason and at least I'm in a position to make people aware."
It's a warm, balmy evening in Manchester and boyband Triple A have arrived at the Victoria and Albert Hotel where we meet. In the lobby a posse of pubescent fans are waiting for their idols. One suddenly breaks free and rushes towards us. Gazing at Keith, she tells him: "My mum loves you." Oh dear. Such is the transitory and fickle nature of fame.
"Ten years ago, they'd have been jumping on me," he says, recalling his six heady years on the road with Ronan Keating's band of Irish boys. "Now I'm just a sparkle in their mum's eye."
Not that he's fretting. He is, arguably, more famous now than he was in Boyzone's heyday when, as "the one at the back," his good looks were eclipsed by pin-ups Ronan Keating and Stephen Gately.
Today, four years after the band split acrimoniously after a well documented bust-up with Keating, he's a soap opera heart-throb. "I've got a new lease of life and I'm loving it."
(Source: Daily Mirror, July 12, 2003)
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