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Our story

Over the last 25 years, Autism Early support has worked directly with over 900 children, providing thousands of hours of specialist support.

Our story began in 2001 as Puzzle Pre‑school, run from our founder Alexandra Stanyer’s home in Winslow. From the outset, the focus was on providing high‑quality early support for young autistic children, alongside practical training and workshops for parents.

As demand grew, so did our work. We gained recognition for our approach through Outstanding Ofsted inspections, national conferences and partnerships with local authorities. We became a registered charity, enabling us to expand our services and reach more families. Funding from grant makers and supporters allowed us to move into larger premises and invest in long‑term sustainability.

During this period, we adopted evidence‑based frameworks, including the SCERTS® Model, which continues to underpin our practice today. Our work increasingly extended beyond our own setting, with practitioners from across the UK and internationally visiting to learn from our approach. We also began delivering accredited training and contributing to national standards in early years autism education.

As The Puzzle Centre, and later Autism Early Support, our services continued to develop. We introduced outreach and assessment services, worked with children up to age 12, and expanded training for families, schools and professionals. Even during the pandemic, our nursery remained open and we developed online training and virtual family support that continues to grow.

In recent years, our reach has grown significantly. Through partnerships with health and local authority services, and the development of our digital platform The Parent’s Portal, we now support more families than ever before.

Now, 25 years on, thousands of parents access guidance, resources and community support through our services. While the scale of our work has changed, our purpose has not. We continue to do what we have always done, provide early, practical and trusted support that makes a lasting difference for autistic children and their families. Just as we did from the very beginning.

The AES timeline

Case studies

Logan

Logan joined our family when we adopted him as a tiny baby, he was five months old. After Logan’s first birthday, we started to notice a few changes……

Gryff

I don’t even know where to begin when talking about The Circle Centre – our lives have totally changed since our son joined……

Ryley and Archie

Brothers, Ryley and Archie, attended Circle Centre when they were 4 and 3. Now 10 and 8, Mum Laura reflects on her boy’s time with us……….

Millie and Freya

Sisters, Millie and Freya were both diagnosed with autism before they were three years old and spent time in our Circle Centre ……

Oliver

In the summer of 2021, Oliver’s family contacted us to seek help from our Outreach Team. He was finding his current childcare setting challenging, which had only been exacerbated…

Shishka and Dillon

Ever since our son Dillon turned one, we noticed he wasn’t progressing in the same way as other children his age. He had social interaction and communication differences……