AN 18-year-old from Caldicot School has won the Digital Animation category in the CREATE! Art for Autism competition 2013.

Matthew Dixon attended an awards ceremony at Beechwood College in the Vale of Glamorgan, which rewards the creativity of winners' from across the UK, after taking part in a national autistic art competition.

A panel of judges chose Matthew's work, The Owl, over fellow youngsters aged between 11 and 25 who have an Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC).

All entrants received a certificate, the 41 finalists received a £25 Amazon voucher and winners across the five categories received £50 Amazon vouchers, a digital table and a CREATE! artbox for their school or organisation.

Matthew said: "I created the 'The Owl' animation using the stop-motion technique. I wrote a short story about a birdwatcher, a buzzard and an owl. The story is about a birdwatcher who, originally wanted to take a photo of an owl during the night sky, but the owl messes up the photo and so the birdwatcher sets his focus on the buzzard. The owl is annoyed, he then travels up a closed railway track and sets the signal for another train to go up the line. When the train passes the birdwatcher, he is more interested in the locomotive and thanks the owl."

Jane Asher, president of the National Autistic Society, said: "It's so difficult to judge these tremendous pieces of work against each other, but we were there to find winners, and are very pleased with the selection we've made."