Featured Article – William by Jeff Hall

William was always special. He was born on New Year’s Eve 1998, our second child, our first boy. He had big blue eyes and blonde hair. He was a big, round ball of chubby cuteness.

By the time he was 9 months old, he hadn’t started babbling yet. He loved being in his swing. A lot. Like all the time. Hours at a time. The motor burned out. He loved his pacifier and would not sleep without it.

By the time he had his one year checkup, Barbara was concerned enough about his development to ask the pediatrician about it. It’s all good, the doc said. Boys are different than girls. Rates of development differ. Nothing to worry about. Barbara said, yep. I know all that. But something isn’t right.

She got up and left the office. A few days later she was at another appointment and saw a flyer on the wall. The poster was for Project Child Find, which was offering a free screening for kids like William. Kids who were different.

William would get a screening, and by the time he was 18 months old he had attended his first therapy sessions for what was being described as sensory integration and pervasive developmental disorder. Disorder. It hurt to hear. The first time we would hear that William wasn’t just different, he was abnormal. Wrong.

At least that is how I heard it.

As he got older, there were more therapy sessions, and groups, and talks with doctors. When he was 2½, he was in a group with 4 other kids. The group met with their therapist in a special room at Womack Army Medical Center on base (we lived on Fort Bragg).

The other kids in the group were like William. They didn’t make eye contact. They flopped and flapped. They became agitated if one of their toys was taken. We began talking to the other parents who joined us in observing the group behind the two way mirror. It was a conversation that special needs parents will recognize. You see, not unlike elementary kids comparing Pokemon or middle schools boys talking football teams or high school kids talking about whatever the hell it is they talk about, we compare diagnoses.

“Is that your son?”

“Yep, red shirt. Your daughter?”

“Yes. Pink boots. What’s your son’s diagnosis?”

“PDD and sensory integration. Yours?”

“Autism.”

We asked another parent. Then another. Then another. Autism. ASD. Autism.

Of course, that was not something we had to worry about. The therapist had told us that William didn’t have autism. He was just in this group because he had a “commonality of challenges.” He wasn’t autistic. I mean, I had seen Rainman. William couldn’t or wouldn’t talk, much less count or do amazing math.

Daphne, the group leader, had clearly seen parental denial before. She was very patient. She had a suggestion. I have something I would like for you to fill out she said. It is called CARS — the childhood autism rating scale. Fill it out, and we’ll talk about it.

When we got home, we filled out the form. You could almost hear the ominous movie music playing in the background as we marked 4 after 3 after 4. We looked at one another, coming to the same conclusion at the same time.

William’s got autism.

And we have a lot to learn.

Continue reading HERE on Jeff’s website