Living with a Child on the Autistic Spectrum

I want to start this in the most positive way possible as one of the saddest parts of the diagnosis process is the focus on all the negative aspects of your child's condition.

David is the most wonderful seven year old. He is kind and loving and great fun to be around. He has the most amazing memory and is always able to help me remember phone numbers and bus times. He knows a lot about maps and travel, the world of Harry Potter, Trains and many, many other things. He has a thirst for knowledge and loves to share it with others. He is very talented with computers and often helps both me and his teacher out in this department. David also has Asbergers syndrome combined with Tourrettes. There is no cure for either of these conditions, it will be a life long struggle for David and the rest of us in his family, to help him to manage the negative aspects in order to lead a happy and healthy life.

Before I start to look at the negative aspects of Asbergers I would first like to say that I would not change David. We all view Asbergers as a gift and in many ways David is advantaged over us lesser mortals. Wouldn't it be great to have such amazing memory skills? Just think how handy that would be when it came to exam time!

David was a very health 7lb 14oz baby. He was born on time with no major complications. As David was my third baby I noticed differences with him right from the start. He was a very good baby, too good to be true in fact and from talking to other parents this seems to be a common factor. David never cried. If he needed attention he would make a low moaning sound, this meant that we had to be extra vigil as it was not always loud enough to get your attention especially during the night. Due to a shortage of Health Visitors in my area I was visited by a Midwife, and these visits were few and far between. Any time that we raised any concerns about David, we were told not to be silly, that we didn't know how lucky we were to have such a happy, easy baby. Shortly after this I was diagnosed as suffering from severe post natal depression and the main concern of the health professionals was directed at me.

As David got older, his condition became more apparent. He developed a lot slower than my other two kids, sat up around nine months and was very slow to move. There was no separation anxiety and he was very happy to be left on his own for long periods of time (most of the time you felt like he wouldn't notice if you were not there). He was a very fussy eater and for a period of time would not eat anything other than bananas and baby rice. He developed an obsession with opening and shutting doors and drawers and if you tried to stop him from doing this he would through an almighty tantrum. He would become very distressed if their was a lot of noise, he hated the sound of the hoover and would scream if he was around it, he also hated going shopping in the supermarket because of all the sounds that are there.

When David was just about three, I contacted my Health Visitor again. David was due to start nursery in a few weeks and he was still not toilet trained, and was showing no signs of getting close. His temper tantrums were really getting me down and making it very difficult to take him out. His behaviour was also having an effect on my other two kids and they were struggling to cope with the lack of time that they were receiving from me and my husband.

If I was to say that this woman was unhelpful it would be the understatement of the year! Not only was dismissive of our concerns she was very judgemental. As far as she was concerned David's problems were all a result of my postnatal depression and inconsistent parenting. Her only suggestion was a star chart in order to help him with his toileting. Not surprisingly this had a very limited success. We were lucky that the staff at David's nursery were so supportive and allowed him to attend provided he was wearing nappy pants. They were very tolerant of his quirks and he really enjoyed his time there, taking part in most of the activities that were offered but still refusing to dress up and not being able to cope with being called any name other than David. This was problematic if one of the kids suggested that he should be Spiderman and could result in a full-scale temper tantrum, but by this time we felt that there was no point in talking to anybody about David as we felt we were banging our heads against the wall.