Enter Autism
This is my story and my son's story. It's the way that we were first introduced into the world of autism. Incidentally, the pictures here are just to make the story more interesting to read. They're not the real people involved.
Around mid-2005, my son was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Prior to this, I'd never heard of it.
I'd heard of autism and like most people I had a very negative view of it. If someone had told me that fifteen years later I'd still be talking about autism and that I'd become something of an expert on it, I wouldn't have believed them - and yet, here we are.
Early Rumblings
My son was five at the time he was diagnosed and we'd already begun seeing a developmental paediatrician a couple of years earlier because we'd failed to toilet train him properly. He seemed to learn and then suddenly he'd forget it all again.
The paediatrician's advice, to back off and leave things for almost a year before trying again had worked. Actually, I think it was that his younger brother (by three years) was starting to toilet train, that made all the difference.
My wife kept trying to tell me that there was something "wrong with him" and I kept arguing back that there was nothing wrong. "He was exactly like me at that age".
In my closed-mindedness, I was saying more than I realised.
The Right Teacher
When my son started kindergarten, his teacher was constantly trying to draw our attention to an issue. She wouldn't say what it was though because there are rules about that sort of thing. We followed her advice though and took him off to see his developmental paediatrician for a diagnosis.
We came back with a diagnosis of ADD, which is now referred to as ADHD (Inattentive). When we told the teacher however, she shook her head and said, "that's not quite what I was expecting". Again we had the conversation about why she couldn't tell us.
Then I hit upon an idea. I said to her. If I asked the Doctor if you could talk to him over the phone, could you tell him what you think is going on. She was willing to do that and our doctor was also willing. The doctor had a conversation with her and then sent us a survey to be filled out - by each parent and by a few teachers.
The next time we saw the doctor, he changed the diagnosis to Asperger's syndrome.
Reading Revelations
On the way home from the doctor's office, we called into a bookstore and purchased two books about Asperger's syndrome. My wife read one book downstairs while I went upstairs and read the other. After a couple of hours of reading, I came down to see my wife.
"You've got to read this book", I said.
"Yes", she replied, "we'll swap books when we're finished".
"No", I said, "you have GOT to read this.... It's about ..."
"You", she finished. "This book", she said, waving her book around, "this book is all about you".
There and then, we'd decided that I might have Asperger's too.
Another School Meeting
It wasn't long before we were called into another school meeting. This time, it was all about setting up the IEP and defining goals for our son. It was a much happier meeting because we suddenly knew where we all stood.
I'd been reading voraciously on the subjects of Asperger's and autism. It had become something of a special interest to me and I was well on my way to becoming an expert.
The teacher was all smiles and in response to my newfound knowledge. She put her hand on my wife's arm and nodded at me.
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree", she said.
I was a bit perplexed. I have a hearing problem so I tend to miss things sometimes. Was the teacher now talking about fruit? My wife simply nodded and guessed that something important had happened there.
Shortly afterwards I sought a diagnosis myself. Following that, while continuing my research I went on a journey of self discovery that took me to forums (especially WrongPlanet.net where I racked up about 4,000 posts over a couple of years). Then I turned to blogging.
A year later and my younger son too was diagnosed. It was definitely genetic and it was strong in our family.
My kids are now grown up, aged 17 and 20 as I write this. They grew up with the full knowledge of their place on the autism spectrum and they grew up celebrating their differences rather than trying to hide them. My eldest has now been employed for over a year in a computing position and has completed tertiary education with awards.
The sky is the limit.