I took my son to visit the new Thinkery Museum, formally Austin’s Children Museum, at a special Members event and boy was it a blast. There is 40,000 square feet of things to do, climb, create, draw and learn. What an improvement over the previous downtown Children’s Museum. The official opening is December 7, 2013. It’s just a great space for roaming around.

Currently, it does not have any special program for autistic individuals but I did speak with museum staff while I was there and they said that “sensory” days for special needs kids were in the works. I will keep you posted, dear readers. I also recommended that they speak with Dr. Wendy Ross, developmental pediatrician out of Philadelphia, PA, and one of the country’s leading experts on museum and airline accommodations for children and adults with autism. They are looking into accommodating kids like our kids in the future. We’ll see. But the space is just great, so I’m hoping that they are indeed able to find ways to incorporate autistic kids into the museum experience and really let their minds find new ways to experience the world.

Even with a crowd of wall-to-wall kids, here’s my son’s review of the Thinkery:

“It was really fun and really creative and I just played in it and it was so much good.”

If you want more information on the Thinkery, check out their website.