The Day I Found out my Child had Autism
Being a mom of three is hard work, especially when you are a mom of a very special little boy who happens to have Autism.
As of now Connor is almost 3 years old. It doesn’t seem very long ago when we were at his 18 month well child.
My world turned upside down as his MCHAT scored him high risk for Autism. I don’t typically cry and part of me is really embarrassed that I cried, especially since I had a feeling anyway.
He showed all of the signs.
Walking on tip toes, loss of speech/speech delay, hand flapping, spinning, lining things up, he did it all. I think part of the reason for crying was my lack of sleep.
We just had a new baby so we had many sleepless nights.
The next step was his referral for more in depth autism testing and referral to early on for speech therapy. Which wasn’t new to me.
His older brother Zach who is 5 now just went through the same thing because of similar behaviors that can look like autism (sensory issues) but turns out Zach just had sensory processing disorder and ADHD.
After the testing Connor was scored nonverbal at the time with moderate to severe Autism.
While we were doing the testing, I put Connor in preschool and speech therapy in hopes of starting him with the best head start he could get.
Right before the testing and when he finally started his therapy I could slowly feel him slipping away. I felt like I was losing him.
He was unhappy. He couldn’t talk or get his needs met. He zoned out and seemed to be in his own world.
I felt like I lost my son.
The baby who smiled, laughed, said mama and dada all the time, was now a boy who didn’t speak, spun in circles over and over and preferred to line up his food instead of eat it.
So flash forward to now Connor has started ABA therapy (Applied Behavioral Analysis), which has proven to give children with Autism so much improvement with their everyday struggles.
He still has a significant speech delay for a boy his age but it is getting better everyday.
At his last check to see where he was compared to children his age, his speech level was at about a 1 and 1/2 year old at almost 3 years old, which before with his initial screen with his speech therapist he had the speech language of a 6 month old baby.
We aren’t giving up and we are gonna keep working hard.
Written by, Lindsey LaPonsie
Lindsey is a mom of three wonderful kids, 2 boys 1 girl. Her oldest child is 5, Connor almost 3 who is on the spectrum, and their littler girl who is 15 months. She has a blog at Through Connors Eyes.
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