It was 2008. After a vacation when even my husband began to suspect something more than just a ‘difficult’ child. I began to feel confused and overwhelmed. Could it be some kind of behavioral problem, or a developmental/ neurological disorder?
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) could explain his impulsiveness and hyperactivity but he wasn’t always inattentive, he could concentrate for long periods of time on things that interested him. According to The National Institute of Mental Health those are the 3 key behaviors for that condition to be prevalent.
From what little I knew at the time about autism, he did display some similar characteristics that I remembered reading about some years ago when Andrew Wakefield’s research study and the MMR vaccine controversy was topical. (I had to make the choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate my oldest, and at the time, only child).
I couldn’t believe that what I was seeing then in my 4 year old son was anything like my ‘vision’, albeit uneducated and ignorant, of an autistic child. My once-held perception of an autistic child: mentally impaired, talking in a robot like voice, repeatedly walking on their toes and never making eye contact. That wasn’t my son, he was smart and that’s that. Still, it didn’t feel completely right. He couldn’t possibly be autistic or could he?
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