HUGE changes are ahead of 10-year-old Orrin McGoldrick this September.

The life-changing prospect of moving from primary to secondary school can be a daunting one for most children.

But Orrin suffers from severe anxiety and as a result, depends on routine, has high expectations of his own ability and can often struggle to control his own emotions.

His mother, Caroline and father, Seamus, first noticed his autistic traits when he was five.

“He was an only child at that stage, so for a while we thought his behaviour was just down to him being spoiled!” Caroline explains.

But when his parents referred him to a paediatrician in April 2010, the traits were immediately apparent.

According to Caroline, Orrin’s Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) presents itself through social issues.

“In the beginning, he wouldn’t have talked to anybody,” she says, “He just liked his own company better than anyone else’s.

“If someone said ‘hello’ to him in the street, he would just put his head down.

“You would have said to him: ‘Would you have a bit of manners when people speak to you and say hello back’.

“But he just couldn’t make eye contact with them at all.” Orrin also has “massive obsessions”, as Caroline explains.

“He loved Doctor Who and Lego. But not it’s Gaelic and soccer and countries of the world.

“He could tell you every country of the world, every flag in the world, the capitals and the populations. And that is all self-taught.

“He just looks it up on Google.

“He would take something into his head, sit for a few days and learn everything there is to know about it and then once he’s done that he will move on to the next thing.” The troubling aspect of Orrin’s ASD, however, is his severe anxiety.

“He just always wants to do things to the best of his ability,” says Caroline.

“He has really high expectations of himself. If he doesn’t achieve that, then he will get really anxious and have a massive meltdown.

“Doors are banged, things get thrown, creations get ripped apart.

“He could spend so much time making something only to then rip it apart because it is ‘wrong’ in his eyes.

“One minute he could be really happy and dancing about and then all of a sudden he could have a meltdown -- it can happen that quickly.

“People just think if he kicks off in Asda that he is a bad child. But to be honest, we stopped caring what people think a long time ago -- we stand with our heads held high.

“To look at him you wouldn’t think he had any issue at all.

“And in the past family members have said: ‘Oh, I didn’t think he would be like that’.

“I have told them: ‘You don’t know the half of it!’.” Caroline says her son relies on routine to make sense of his world.

“He has to know what is happening and why -- everything is scheduled and everything has to be known in advance.

“That is why the transition from P7 could have such a massive impact on him.

“He didn’t do the transfer test -- he couldn’t cope with the pressure of it.” Thankfully though, Orrin is already receiving the support he needs to make the transition from Holy Trinity Primary School, where he is a current pupil, to Erne Integrated later this year.

“The teachers and his class room assistant at Holy Trinity are just great,” Caroline says.

“They are going to do a full transition with him.

“They are taking him up to the school regularly over the summer so he can get to know his new school and become familiar with his new surroundings.

“I know he will get all the support he needs and that is so reassuring as a parent.”