When the Reason is Autism

On November of 2014, the most beautiful baby boy came into our lives. As most new parents, we were completely overjoyed and thought he was absolutely perfect. Jackson was such a happy baby, and I remember how people used to comment on how expressive he was. As Jackson grew, he continued to hit all the milestones of a typical growing infant and soon, toddler.

Rolling over? Check. Crawling? Check. Walking? Check. First words? Nothing.

I recall around age two when I started to get a little suspicious about why my son hadn’t started talking yet. I watched friend’s sons who were the same age, and they were saying words. They were even putting multiple words together to form small sentences and here was my son, who still only baby babbled.

I reached out to our doctor at his two year checkup and he had told me that often times the second child is slower to talk because the first child tends to talk for them. I could see how that could definitely be true about our four year old chatterbox daughter, Kenzie. When she learned to talk, there was no stopping her!

So, the doctor said in 4-6 months if he still wasn’t talking, he’d refer us to a specialist. I left that appointment feeling optimistic that my son was just fine. He was just a shy kid. We were all so used to how social Kenzie’s was, he might just be a little more introverted. When it came down to it, they were all just excuses I was trying to find to tell myself that Jackson was fine.

Six months went by in a flash, like time seems to do. I found myself sitting back in that same doctors office with a wrench in my gut, having deja vu because here I was again in this same office, telling the same story to the doctor.

Jackson still has zero words. I knew what was coming next. “Yeah, I think it’s time we bring in a specialist.”

I had prepared myself for this answer, but man, did it still hurt. That day after the doctors office, I went straight home and I googled “lack of speech in toddlers”. Number one find, autism. And number 2, and 3 and so on….. the whole page was search engines to autism. I reluctantly hit a search link that caught my eye, “Modified Checklist for autism in toddlers”. I started this 20 question quiz “just to see”.

First question, “Does your child look if you point to something across the room? No.

“Does your child look at you when you call his name? No.

“Does your child like movement activities like spinning and jumping? Holy cow, yes!

“Will your child point if he sees something he wants?” No.

I was only halfway done with this checklist and I knew what the results were going to say. I finished the checklist and there it was. Like a slap in the face, my ah-ha moment.

After reading those questions it was like it suddenly all made so much sense. I had known deep down that our inability to take him anywhere where he couldn’t physically be strapped down because he runs, was not normal. It wasn’t that he was “just a boy, and that’s what they do” which was my excuse on why he did it.

People would look at the sweat dripping from my forehead from chasing this little boy who would never stop, never slow down, and never tire. It wasn’t normal. When family and friends would pick him up and try to engage with him, Jackson wouldn’t engage back. “He’s just shy.” Another excuse.

It was now, in that moment after reading the results “Score indicates high risk. You should bring your to a specialist to get a full assessment” that I realized Jackson wasn’t fine.

His lack of eye contact and interest in other people wasn’t that he was just shy. His endless energy wasn’t because he was just a boy. His spinning and jumping and hand flapping weren’t just cute little quirks of his. And his lack of speech wasn’t because of his overly chatty sister.

They all had a reason and that reason was Autism. I didn’t need to hear it from a specialist to know. Life at that moment was different.

Just like that, with the click of a mouse, I knew my child had autism.

Written by Jamie Rittenour

My name is Jamie and I have two beautiful babies; Kenzie is seven and my social butterfly with a heart of gold and Jackson is my sweet and goofy three year old. We received Jackson’s diagnosis almost a year ago, and afterwards I felt lost. We live in a small town, and autism wasn’t something we knew anything about. You can follow their beautiful journey on Facebook at Jackson’s World.

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