LONDON: Natural History Museum - perfectly roarsome for autistic kids
- Jan 27, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
This amazing museum has a world class accessibility programme for autistic and other neurodivergent children.
We've attended the Dawnosaurus events countless times and boys still find it a magical, friendly and inclusive experience.
Read on to discover why.
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What is the Dawnosaurs Event at the Natural History all about?
Traditional tourist attractions are normally places we avoid like the plague. Full of crowds, noise and queues they are almost totally inaccessible for our two autistic children who struggle in these environments and get completely overwhelmed. Luckily for us, London has some amazing attractions that are making a real effort to welcome, support and encourage families with neurodivergent children (or adults) through their doors.
One of our absolute favourite London activities is attending the Dawnosaurs events at the Natural History Museum. These incredible SEND only sessions win for there genuine commitment to inclusivity, and the care, attention and real understanding of hidden disabilities that its staff show in their interactions with our autistic and adhd children.
The Dawnosaurs Experience
The Natural History Museum's flagship activity for neurodivergent children is their inclusive event called Dawnosaurs. It is offered free of charge (donations accepted) and runs around 5 times a year.
The events last from from 8am – 10am, we try and go twice each year – the boys love it, and it is one of their absolute favourite days out in London.
For more information on visiting London with autistic children read my post:
Who can book tickets to Dawnosaurs?
It is designed specifically for children / young adults aged 5 – 15yrs who struggle to access the collection in normal visiting hours (e.g. because of autism ADHD, Tourette’s, OCD and other sensory processing difficulties).
Other accessible options outside of the Dawnosaurs event include companion tickets, quiet spaces in each of their zones and audio guides narrated by Sir David Attenborough. For a full listing you can visit their Accessibility Page.
HOW TO BOOK
Link to book tickets:
What can you do at the Dawnosaurs Experience?
After a very short queue to have your name ticked off you are left to explore whatever areas work best for you. Essentially they give you the run of the museum, although occasionally some of the galleries are closed off. The Dinosaur gallery with the animatronic roaring t-rex however is ALWAYS open!
Throughout the museum you will find really friendly, experienced, neurodivergent-aware facilitators who run some brilliant sessions designed especially for children. They are also very good at responding to different forms of communication and seem to know exactly when to stop talking or when one of the boys has lost interest, and they never take it personally!
As an added bonus the museum sometimes opens up their temporary exhibition that you would normally need a paid ticket for. This is great because not only is the space crowd free, we don’t mind how quickly the boys want to rush through it, if there is something we really wanted to look at for longer we can usually persuade him to pop back in for another quick look before we leave.
Our Dawnosaurs Highlights
Since we started going in 2023 the boys have loved having the opportunity to interact with the museum’s exhibits in an up close but totally non-threatening way.
Some of their favourite activities have included:
Touching and examining meteor space rocks from millions of years ago
Measuring themselves against the femur of the tallest dinosaur in history at the
Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur exhibition
Being part of the NHM’s big LEGO build (just for SEN kids)
Participating in drumming workshops
Marvelling at a wonderchicken and having as long as they wanted to play on the interactive games at the Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre exhibition
Holding a tortoise shell and real dinosaur fossils and guessing what they are
Making nature themed Easter bonnets and other crafts
What happens on the day - our timetable
Our usual Dawnosaurs event experience goes something like this:
7:50am: Arrive and join short queue outside museum
8am: Register and have your name checked off. At this point they will offer new families a free map – normally £2 – and a cute NHM badge.
The boys love the exhibits in the Exhibition Rd entrance gallery so we start there. Then, if there is a temporary exhibition we normally go and see that next.
8:30am: We split up – one of us takes our youngest to see the roaring T-Rex and the dinosaur skeletons while the other one takes our eldest to do one of the special activities
9am: Meet by Andy’s Clock in the Hintz Hall then head to the café for snack time (no queues so super quick to buy ourselves a hot drink). Good chance for a toilet break too.
9:30am: Spend the remaining time visiting one of the permanent galleries before the crowds start rushing in – favourites include the Mammals (with the huge life size blue whale, woolly mammoth etc) the space gallery and the volcanoes and earthquakes gallery (even better when the simulator is on and they can stand on it for as many repeats as they like!).
10:10am Leave via the exit in the Hintze Hall to the bemusement of those queuing to get in!
Why do our two autistic children love the NHM Dawnosaurs events so much?
Being allowed to visit the museum multiple times means that the boys know it like the back of their hand now so feel totally at home running around its corridors and going to see all their favourite things.
They also benefit from the face that we broadly follow the same routine, so they know what's going to happen and they can relax and enjoy it.
It is also a nice feeling to not be the ‘outsider’ and to have a shared experience in common with the other families there. We are all pretty ok with the idea of ‘different’; there is no judgement or comments from others about displays of stimming or distressed behaviour, only support if needed.
In fact I have had some very helpful conversations with other mums about all sorts of things – particularly products their children might be using that I had been thinking of buying or hadn’t come across before.
Final thoughts on visiting the Dawnosaurs SEN experience with autistic kids
I cannot tell you how much we enjoy these visits to the Natural History Museum.
We can guarantee that the NHM has passed the Fred and Charlie Sunflower test, and we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this amazing place to other autistic families.
If you have not had the chance to visit the Natural History Museum before then we really hope that this is the year your family can finally enjoy a fun and (mostly) stress free outing in London!
