The Beautiful Face of Autism

One of the most important and life changing events for our family centers around Quinn being diagnosed with autism. He has obviously been delayed in his speech, especially compared to his triplets siblings who both seem to pick up language like a shiny new penny from the ground. I have been questioning his therapists about if they thought he might be on the spectrum since about when Quinn was one. Everyone thought Quinn's social skills were to well developed to include him in that quickly growing group of kids that now fall under the umbrella diagnosis of autism. Despite their opinions we pursued the matter with Quinn's pediatrician, who strangely enough has a child with autism himself. He seemed unsure if Quinn would fall into the diagnosis or not, but agreed we should have a formal evaluation done.

We went and had the eval done and had a second opinion, both teams of experts felt Quinn fell on to the high end of the spectrum. So begins our new life, reading books and books about the diagnosis, finding out that the topic of autism is as emotionally charged and polarized as breast feeding or not, and that there is no set plan for what to do know that you have this diagnosis to deal with and treatments to select. There is no perfect recipe to apply to our child to be sure we are doing what's right. In spite of Quinn's age of just two, he now has a part time job, 20 hours of week of behavioral, speech and occupational therapy to help him find his voice in this world. We have to always be questioning are we doing enough of this, should we be doing more of that?

The other aspect of the diagnosis that you can't even imagine is how do you think of your child now. At first you have to remind your self this is the same Quinn you knew before he had this new label. We are so lucky that Quinn is even here, he is the baby that struggled the most after being born prematurely. I was awakened on the night he was born and asked to call my husband to the hospital because they were unsure if he would make it through the night. But he did. And he is here. He may not be able to speak many words, but we know he knows as much as his siblings from what he can show us. We don't know what challenges he will face as he grows up, but what parent knows that about their typically developing child? I hope he finds his voice and finds some friends and has a career and lives independently, but I don't know if that will be true. All I know is he is our beautiful boy, whose laugh and smile can fill a room, who loves cars and letters and has a family of people that will move heaven and earth for him and give him the best support we have to give. Just remember that 1 in 110 children are diagnosed with autism, so you never know when you might be beholding the beautiful face of autism!