Archive for July, 2007
How Not to Find Out Your Child is Autistic
Our son was two years old, and barely used any verbal language. I had been told so many times that “boys develop language later,” that I grasped onto that belief with little hesitation.
Six months previous, my wife had seen a news segment about autism, and for some reason she saw characteristics of our son. When she brought the idea up to me, I quickly rejected the idea. Our son was only 18 months old, how many 18-month-olds are speaking? Sure, he rolls his trucks back and forth repeatedly, but he just likes trucks!
Well, when Colton was 27 months old we finally asked our pediatrician if we could get his speech evaluated. We took Colton to the evaluation, and watched in horror as he failed so many of their “tests.” At the end of the evaluation, I could tell that something was wrong, just based off of the facial expressions of the testers. They, in the most polite way possible, told us that Colton showed several signs that were characteristic of the “autism spectrum.” Our life has never been the same since.
- Do NOT find out that your child is Autistic 6 months after you notice the first signs.
- Do NOT wait for your pediatrician to mention something. Just because their child was a “late talker” doesn’t mean that your child is.
- Do NOT ignore, or blow off, the concerns of your partner. If something doesn’t feel right, then there is a good chance that something is wrong.
Am I trying to make every parent paranoid? Well.. yes. If I had been paranoid, we could have diagnosed the problem 6-7 months earlier. What is the worst that could have happened? My wife and I would have had our son evaluated, only to be told that he’s perfectly fine. So we would have wasted a few hours. Big deal. If you feel that something is not right, even if you are a first-time parent, then take the actions needed to make yourself feel alright about the situation.
+1 for my wife.