How Siri helped me connect with my autistic son

File photo: Luke Peters demonstrates Siri, an application which uses voice recognition and detection on the iPhone 4S, outside the Apple store in Covent Garden, London October 14, 2011. I know I'm a bad mother, but how bad? I wonder for the hundredth time as I watch Gus deep in conversation with Siri. Obsessed with weather formations, Gus has spent the last hour parsing the difference between isolated and scattered thunderstorms – an hour when, thank God, I don't have to discuss them. Siri: It's nice to be appreciated.