Autism: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

My Son Has Autism.

He was officially diagnosed at age 3, but I knew long before then. When he was a baby he was jaundiced and not gaining weight properly even though I was breast feeding him. He suffered from constant ear infections. He cried all the time, wouldn’t look me in the eye and tried to pull away from me when I held him. It was heartbreaking. I cried a lot too.

Milestones

He was late hitting all his developmental milestones. Crawling… Walking… Talking…

Because of his constant ear infections, he had an excess of fluid and wax build up behind his ear drums. He could not hear properly so he did not learn to speak properly. I was the only one who could understand him. The doctor put tubes in his ears to drain the fluid. After that he could hear, but he developed Echolalia. He could repeat what he heard, like a parrot, but it might not make sense in conversation. He could only repeat phrases he heard on SpongeBob SquarePants! Just picture that… So we communicated in our SpongeBob language.

The Diagnosis

At age three we took my son to a developmental pediatrician who diagnosed him with High Functioning Autism and ADHD. She said it was the most severe case of ADHD she had ever seen. I asked her: “Does that mean we win a prize?”

My son spent most of the visit under her desk searching for things. He found broken glass, thumbtacks, nails and staples. He dumped the pile on her desk like a present. He was very proud. She was surprised. I was embarrassed.

The Therapy

My son was enrolled in a special needs school at age 3. He received cognitive, behavioral and speech therapy. I remain forever grateful to his teachers. In less than 6 months he was speaking in complete sentences! He still had a mild form of Echolalia, but at least we could move past total SpongeBob Speak.

At age 4 he learned to read. I was surprised and I thanked his teachers. They were surprised as well. They had never taught him. When I asked him about learning to read he said that he had taught himself. I was dumbfounded. He said: “Well, I thought it was time.”

The Mind of Autism

My son has always been inquisitive and intelligent. He was always asking questions about the way things work and the nature of the universe. He is very interested in physics, quarks, dark matter, wormholes, etc. Starting at age 4 he began his endless barrage of questions. One was about black holes. He asked me, since black holes pull in everything in their path and light cannot escape, does that mean that the other end of the black hole lets out into a light universe?

WTF?

Where did that come from? He surprises me constantly. He also makes my brain hurt. So I made a new rule:

No Physics Before Breakfast!

No Filters

Because of my son’s autism he has no filters and doesn’t think before he speaks. This can get pretty tricky at times. Sometimes hilarious. We stopped at a convenience store once and my son observed a man smoking a cigarette. He pointed at the and said: Cigarettes are bad for you. You are going to get lung cancer and die!” The man looked at my son then at his cigarette. “You’re probably right.” He threw down the cigarette and walked away.

Once at church, during a particularly long winded prayer and following silent prayer, my son’s voice boomed for all to hear:

“Is this ever going to end?”

Now, I was thinking the exact same thing, but I wasn’t going to admit it. I was mortified and wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. The church thought it was hilarious judging by the laughter.

More to Follow…

This is my first post about my son’s autism. I will post more articles on a regular basis. It is my son’s journey, but I’m right there on the train with him.