I am a mom. I have a husband, 2 kids and 2 dogs - we are just your ordinary American family. Our daughter happens to be Autistic, and she has taught us so much. This page is dedicated to all the families who are learning how to help their kids be their best.
"If you have ever met one child with Autism you have only met one child with Autism" - Unknown
Each child has unique abilities and limitations, what helps one child improve may not help another and the belief of the reasons on why they become autistic vary greatly. The constant and the message here is that no matter the situation we have seen and experienced first hand that HOPE exists and that every child can improve.
Our story is a beautiful, kind, funny and spontaneous little girl named Lindsey. We were cruising along in life with a healthy, happy, and smart 2 year old son and the birth of our daughter- life was perfect. She was developing and hitting milestones- until she wasn't. Around 18 months she started regressing, the few words she said started fading and very little language if any was used. She drifted into a fog and was distant, she wouldn't acknowledge her name or simple requests of "stop" or "no". It was obvious that something was going on. We had her tested at age 2, the diagnosis - Global Developmental Delay. The expectation was that Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy would get her back on track. Unfortunately, at age three after little to no gain she was officially diagnosed as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Receptive and Expressive Language Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Hypotonia.
Hearing those words, those labels - it was tough, but the hardest part of our appointment was hearing this doctor tell us "Love her for who she is, she will not have friends, she will not be able to play sports with teammates, she will not be able to communicate, she will not progress past the age of 6 intelligence." Those words were devastating. No parent wants to think that their 3 year old child has a hopeless bleak future.
I am here to say stay strong. We stayed strong, we did not accept this as her future and I immediately threw myself into reading and learning as much as possible about this condition that was stealing my daughter.
I met other moms, moms that were placed directly in my path by God. There is no other way to explain the wealth of information that others provided, the honesty that these moms expressed, the battles they encountered and the hope they provided for me with the stories of success they had found for their child. I knew they were on to something and at whatever cost or time or hardship we too would fight for Lindsey to have her own success story.
It has not been easy. There is a great deal of information and determining what is trustworthy and what isn't is hard. The medical details and explanations of how to correct the issues are confusing and often left me wondering if I needed a masters degree to understand all the language and terminology. But we kept moving forward, we learned that her diet could be altered and could be causing a great deal of her issues. I remember thinking "if I change what groceries I buy, I could hear my daughter talk to me?" DONE. I immediately that day changed her diet. Within 2 weeks she started making eye contact and recognizing her name again. That was all I needed to learn more, try more and do more. My husband often told me that she was "my little peetree dish" and she certainly was. Nothing I did was harmful, it was all in an effort to make her diet more clean and healthy. We saw results with each new endeavor. When you hear your non-verbal daughter tell you "love you" it gives you all the motivation you need to keep moving forward.
The point of this post is simple, 2 years after her diagnosis - her ADHD and Receptive and Expressive language disorder are fading fast, she is no longer suffering of Hypotonia. She is still on the spectrum but making huge gains regularly and her vocabulary has exploded. She tells me at night what she wants to wear the next day to school, what little boy she likes and what she looks forward to doing the next day. She does have friends, she does play soccer and she loves life. She isn't in a fog anymore.
Stay tuned Lindsey has just gotten started!
#Autism #AutismSpeaks #Specialneeds #nolimits #HopeforAutism
