The First Signs of Differences

Part 3. on What Worked For Ian

A couple of weeks ago, I started a series looking back on what we did right and wrong, when raising our son with high functioning autism. In last week’s piece, I said that we first noticed Ian’s differences when he turned two, because he only had a handful of words when the baby books said that he should have hundreds of words and be combining them into sentences.

I should clarify. We first started noticing our son’s differences at age two, when he had trouble talking, but his differences were already there. We just didn’t recognize the early warning signs of autism.

When Ian was one, I was talking with another parent outside of Jonah’s pre-school with Ian perched in a pack on my back. This parent, who was also an elementary school teacher, ran her finger lightly along his chubby baby arm. When Ian pulled his arm away from her touch, she didn’t say anything, but she paused our conversation and was clearly making notes in her head about his response to her light touch. Her faint smile told me that she found his response very curious.

When strangers on the street stopped us to tickle his toes and say some silly thing that adults say to toddlers, Ian wouldn’t smile or make a gurgly giggle; I quickly made excuses about him needing a nap.

On Ian’s second birthday, I wrote a blog post about how much Ian enjoyed routines and didn’t talk too much.

Ian is a jolly soul with simple needs. A cup of milk, a bowl of goldfish, and thou. Why bother talking when mommy provides those things after a simple grunt and hand signal? Especially when there is so much to investigate. And do. There's a shelf of books to unload. A computer badly in need of rebooting. And what is that kitty up to?

Responding to that blog post, two readers — complete strangers — wrote to tell me that Ian might have autism and that I should take him to a specialist. Random internet strangers, who are now my real friends, knew more than the doctors. But I chose to believe the people with the MDs, so Ian didn’t get a diagnosis until age five. The state decided Ian had a generic speech disorder, and gave him an hour of speech therapy per week, but he didn’t get the huge immersive autism therapy experience that he needed.

Those very early years are the best times for autism therapy and Ian missed it. Will I ever feel guilty? Yes.

While Ian received a little help from the state and later from the school district between ages two and five, I developed my own home-grown methods for helping Ian. It wasn’t rocket science. I just took regular old good parenting techniques — conversation, exposure, love — and amped up those efforts to eleven. I surrounded him by language and words. I talked as much as I could, all day, every day. It was something that was only possible by a parent with a flexible job schedule and who had the energy of someone in their 30s.

I’ll talk about those efforts in the next newsletter.

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LINKS

More from Emily Hanford on the problems with reading instruction in this country. But Orton Gillingham might not be the best method.

The Supreme Court is going to decide whether special ed parents can sue school districts for damages associated with not providing their children with an appropriate education. Yes, please.

Exceptional Minds provides autistic kids with training in the digital arts. Ian is going to take one of their classes in November.

From Andy Rotherham:

Let's Try Plan B. Telling Parents The Truth?

From my main newsletter:

Keeping the Lights on at City Halls and Schools