My Autistic Son

Those that have been following me on Facebook, Twitter, this blog or that hot mess of a site called MySpace, should know that my son has an extremely mild form of autism also diagnosed as High Functioning Autism (HFA). There is a VERY strong possibility that his HFA came from my side of the family. Now there are debates if autism is caused by genetics or environment. That debate can be another post at another time. Back to why we think it is genetic. My sister's son has Asperger Syndrome which is also another form of autism on the mild side, her oldest daughter has had some issues that possibly could be spectrum related and I had gone through various interventions when I was a child in grade school similar to what my son is going through now (no diagnosis at that time however). Also my son's doctors and psychiatrists said I had traits of HFA myself based on the history given about my childhood. If that is not a case of possible genetics being the cause of autism, I do not know what is.

Back to the reason of this post…my son. The wife and I realized that something was up with him when he was about two years old while we were living in Vegas. He was not talking even though we knew he could. He would have these epic tantrums over the smallest of issues. His social skills were not what they should have been for a child his age but all of his other childhood milestones were on target or even accelerated. He started walking at between nine and ten months and he was physically superior in his abilities to my daughter in every way when comparing them at the same age. My son was showing the ability solve complex problems at or above his age level. He just could not (or would not) verbalize what he wanted or needed. He just pointed and grunted. His doctor in Vegas when asked about this said "He will talk when he is ready". I wish we did not listen to him. That made us delay getting my son help. It was not until my son was five years old and got him in the Colorado school system when he was instantly flagged with possibility being HFA or having AS.

It has now been just over one year with the knowledge that my son officially has autism and in that time he has made some of the biggest advances I have seen in him. The school we have him in is a charter school that forces the parents to be involved in the children's academic life. My wife is probably the hardest working volunteer for the school. I donate what time I can occasionally too. This school's curriculum from what I can see is far more accelerated than any public school that I know of. My son was reading, writing and had homework every afternoon in kindergarten. The school is also rated one of the best in the state. As a result my son has a team of people around him that care for him ranging from us, his family, to intervention specialist and his awesome teachers. He is keeping up with his fellow classmates in the first grade with no problems. He is currently on the A-B honor roll (that's my boy).

With him doing this well, all I can do is be ecstatic but when I saw him working on his math this afternoon, I was dumbstruck. He was cruising though his addition and subtraction at a level that appeared that he was not even thinking. I have seen my daughter doing this very same math when she was in the first grade and I could see her think things through but my son, he is like a machine when he is doing his math. He answered one after another without pause except to verbally note that some of the problems were subtraction. Simply amazing. I admit I was particularly strong in math as well and had no issues with calculus. It is hard to describe, but I can even "see" numbers and geometric problems in my head. If you tell me a math problem, I see the answer sometimes. This made me particularly freakish when I was in math class. However, my son seems to have a better developing skill set than I do in math and all that does is make my geek heart beam brightly. If he continues on this path, I feel that there will be nothing that can stop him if he gets into the scientific field. I hear Einstein was very similar as a child as well. Hey! One can hope right?

Going back a year ago, I did not have that same hope. I really felt that my son's life was going to be one obstacle after another and his possibilities were going to be limited due to his autism. Now, one year later, those fears are all but gone. I know he will continue to have issues in social settings but I really believe he will be OK, no…more than OK. Hell, he could be working for CERN or in astronaut program for NASA. I know, here I am placing my dreams on him, but again, one can hope right?