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Autism Diagnosis: Blessing, Curse, or Both?

Receiving my older son’s autism diagnosis four and a half years ago was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, this diagnosis meant that there was something wrong with my son. I had known this for a long time, of course, but having it told to me officially meant that I could no longer hide behind the cloak of denial. I had to face the fact that my child had a developmental disability that would, in all likelihood, affect him for the rest of his life.

On the other hand, though, having the diagnosis meant that we could now get our son the help that he needed. Instead of having a vague sense that there was “something wrong”, we had a name for his condition. We had something to Google, we learned what services to seek, and we entered the labyrinthine world of special needs funding. Although we were devastated, having the diagnosis did make us feel a little more empowered.

About two years later, I stumbled upon an Internet support group for parents of children with autism. This group was not designed to diagnose, or debate, or judge. It’s primary purpose was – indeed, is – to give parents a safe place to talk about the daily challenges of autism, to vent about whatever was bugging them, and to freely utter the phrase, “Autism is bullshit” without having someone jump down their throat.

This group has turned out to be an invaluable resource for me. I have made friends there. I have been able to give and receive advice. I have come to appreciate that in the autism world, there are children both better off and worse off than my son. I have been allowed to express hope and despair, I have been able to laugh and cry.

And I have been able to learn. Through the experiences of other people, I have been able to develop some strategies to help myself, my son and my family. I have come to have a better understanding of what role my younger (neurotypical) son can play in his brother’s life. I have realized that even the strongest of marriages can be strained by the presence of special needs, and I have learned some ways to deal with that. I have learned about how different things are in the United States vs. Canada where autism services are concerned.

I have learned about the difficulties some parents experience, first when it comes to getting a diagnosis for their children, and secondly, when it comes to getting and retaining services. And just this week, I have learned that all of this may be about to change under the new DSM-V diagnostic criteria. Whether it changes for the better or for the worse is an opinion still up for grabs.

Tomorrow: how will the autism diagnosis change, and what does it mean?

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A whole new world of hope

On Saturday morning I woke up full of anticipation.  Gerard, George and I were headed to York University to get the results of George’s latest assessment.  It had been a year since the previous assessment, and the results of that had left us feeling bereft and overwhelmed.  We did not need this latest assessment to tell us that George has made progress: we have seen that unfold right in front of us.  Every single new word and every moment of connection, however fleeting, has been a cause for celebration.  However, it is always nice to have these things acknowledged as part of a formal assessment, to receive confirmation that the progress we see is not just the imaginings of hopeful parents.

The psychologist who led the assessment started by talking about adaptive skills – play skills, social communication, daily living skills such as tidying up at the end of the day, going shopping, and knowing to look before crossing the road.  In this area, George has made very little progress over the last year.  He has not actually lost skills, but compared to typical children of his age, he is relatively further behind than he was a year ago.  We discussed possible reasons for this lack of progress: Gerard and I are often so exhausted and worn out by the demands of day-to-day life that sometimes we just take the path of least resistance.  On hard days it is easier to tidy up ourselves instead of going through the whole time-consuming and exhausting process of prompts and reinforcements that would be necessary to get George to do it.  But recognizing that short-term pain so often leads to long-term gain, we have to change our strategy.

As it turned out, that was the only bad-news part of the whole assessment.  We spoke about verbal skills: George’s vocabulary and use of language, whether he can read and spell, how much he understand what is said to him, his ability to follow instructions with and without additional prompting.  A year ago, George had the verbal skills of an eleven-month-old.  Now, he has the verbal skills of a 30-month-old.  He is still well behind where typical six-year-olds are, but the gains over the last year are huge.  He has made nineteen months’ worth of progress in just a year.  So while there is still a sizeable gap, the gap has narrowed.

When we started talking about non-verbal skills, the news got even better.  Non-verbal skills include things like cognitive skills, problem-solving, understanding of what numbers are for, the ability to see patterns and solve puzzles, and all that kind of good stuff.  George has, to put it simply, made a gigantic leap in this area over the last year.  A year ago, he was functioning at about a twenty-month-old level.  And now – I get goosebumps just thinking about it – he is functioning at a 51-month-old level.  That, my friends, is a gain of 31 months – more than two and a half years – over the space of just one year.  Yes, his overall functioning in this area is still about two years below where it should be.  But a year ago, it was about three and a half years behind.  Again, a narrowing of the gap.

Overall, George has moved down on the autism spectrum.  While he is clearly still on the spectrum and has a long way to go, his autism is not as severe as it was.  The therapy that he has been going to has been making an enormous difference, and with continued therapy and intervention, George can move that much closer to where he should be for his age.

I don’t have a crystal ball.  I cannot say for certain what George’s future holds.  Maybe he will never be much of a talker.  Maybe he will never be able to live completely independently.  Or maybe he will – who am I to say something like that cannot ever happen?  But there is no doubt in my mind that he is loaded with potential, and that he will be great at whatever line of work he ultimately chooses as an adult.

Whatever the future holds for George, he is my boy and I am so proud of him that I could just weep.  It is an honour to be Mom to such an amazing little boy.

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Retrospectively speaking…

This morning I indulged in a bit of retrospection.  I was looking back at the day, almost three years ago, when a doctor broke the news to Gerard and I that our son had autism.  I remember that moment with such sharp clarity that just thinking about it brings back that stab of pain to my heart.  As I sat in the chair in the doctor’s office, I could almost feel the physical force of my world crumbling; I am convinced that the odd buzzing sound I heard was the sound of my expectations shattering.  In that instant I learned that the phrase “to have a weight on one’s shoulders” is not merely metaphorical: I actually felt a physical weight being placed on my shoulders.

The next half-hour or so was intensely painful.  Gerard and I sat and listened as the doctor told us his prognosis for George.  He may never talk, the doctor said.  He has very limited capacity for learning, and as he gets older the gap between him and his peers will get wider and wider.  He will always have severe cognitive delays, he will not be able to function in the world of “normal” people without constant care and supervision.  He probably won’t complete high school; as an adult he may hold down a very basic job but he won’t actually have a career.  We, the parents, were advised to prepare ourselves for a lifetime of intense hands-on parenting.  It all sounded so hopeless, as if George was doomed to a lifetime of misery.

Once the disabling shock and desperation had worn off, I made a decision.  The doctor would be wrong.  I accepted that George might always be different to other people of his age, but we would do whatever it took to help George reach his full potential, whatever that might be.  I was not going to let the well-meaning but pessimistic doctor dictate what George would or would not accomplish.  I would become an advocate for George, I would learn as much as I could about autism, I would give him whatever opportunities were feasible.

And so the hard work began.  My first mission – on the advice of his speech therapist – was to teach him to point.  It was explained to me that pointing is a crucial precursor to basic speech.  Babies point before they can talk; pointing is a very simple, basic, and effective form of communication.  Most kids learn how to point intuitively; children with autism need to be taught.  And so I taught.  Every evening for nine months, I would sit with George and a variety of books, painstakingly pointing to this thing or that thing, using hand-over-hand assistance to help him point.  Prompting, reinforcing, encouraging, never giving up.  There were days when it seemed as if I was getting nowhere.

Are there words in the English language that can describe the immense, overwhelming emotion I felt on the night when George hesitantly, almost shyly, lifted up his tiny hand, formed it into the shape of a point, and with his index finger touched a picture of Bob the Builder in the book we were looking at?  The memory alone makes my eyes go misty.

Since that day, there have been many accomplishments.  George still doesn’t talk a lot, but he makes requests using full sentences.  He even says please.  In recent weeks, he has tentatively entered the world of imaginative play by pretending to be a turtle.  He can read, he can spell out full sentences using his alphabetic fridge magnets.  He counts to a hundred and beyond, and he is learning to do sums using the big wooden abacus that a relative bought for him.  He finds what he wants on the computer without assistance, even typing his own search strings into Google and Youtube.  He has unique but effective problem-solving techniques.  The teachers and therapists who work with him are united in their opinion that George is a very smart kid.  When it comes to numbers, he outperforms typical kids of his age.

There are challenges, of course.  There are the tantrums, the autistic meltdowns, that originate from things I cannot always identify.  There is his refusal to try foods he has never seen, his phobia of doctors, the fact that I have to cut his hair and his nails while he is sleeping to avoid a panic-induced meltdown.  There are the sleep problems that plague us from time to time, especially when there has been a change in routine.  There is his heartbreaking frustration when he tries to express something to us but does not know how to.  There are the times when I have to spend over an hour physically restraining him from banging his head on the wall or the floor.  There are the persistent social communication delays and his anxiety in big groups of unfamiliar people.

Yes, there are a lot of challenges, a lot of days when I want to tear my hair out.  But that doctor was wrong, damn it!  I wish I had the opportunity to tell him so.  I honestly believe that he would be very happy to know that in this particular case, he was wrong.

George is loaded with potential.  I have no doubt that as an adult, he will be one of many autistic people making a truly valuable contribution to society.  It is truly my honour to be running for him and for people like him.