
Originally Posted by
pendennis
My son is mildly autistic, but has severe Asperger's Syndrome. He was born in 1972, and by late 1973, we thought we had a toddler genius. He could read, do math problems such as multiple numeric comparisons, and even understood elements of algebra. However, he was also deathly afraid of change, noise, and just about anything that took him out of "his world". He did poorly in school, was bored, and kept things in a bit of an uproar in his class. By the end of the 1st grade, we were at wit's end. The teacher was unsympathetic, and we finally had a meeting with concerned parties, and discovered the IEP (Individual Education Program). We sat in a meeting which consisted of everyone vs. my wife and me. The meeting was decidedly going badly until a curmudgeonly woman spoke up. She quickly took control, and advised the school folks that if there were any retaliations against our son, they would have to deal with her. In the second grade, he went into Special Ed, and got much better treatment, and seemed to improve. At the same time, we took him to at least four different child psychologists, who, to a man, advised us he would likely kill his younger brother, etc. They didn't have a clue. At the end of the year, I was transferred to Michigan, and we started all over with new IEP's, etc.
In 1989, I needed some treatment for clinical depression (runs in my family). We saw a great psychiatrist, who spent a major amount of time interviewing our entire family. Finally, he asked us if we knew that our oldest son had a form of autism. We were stunned. We always thought that autism was "Rain Man". We discovered that autism was a "spectrum disorder". After extensive testing by both the psychiatrist and one of his staff psychologists, we found he was on the mild end of the spectrum, and that counseling was the order of the day. We kept him in therapy until he was 20, when the staff believed he should be fully mainstreamed. He did much better in community college and got an associate's certificate in mass communication, and started a brief career in radio. He became independent and did very well until 2007. At that time he experienced a total relapse and we had to start over. He lived with us the next fourteen years, finally getting a job suited to his skills, and moving out on his own. It was at this time, that my own psychiatrist and I got into a discussion about my son. She told me to look up Asperger's Syndrome. I started searching for information, and located a test that parents could take to help determine if a child had Asperger's. I honestly answered the questions, and my son "hit" on 25/25. His Asperger's is severe, meaning he just will never be able to master the social contract, so he'll likely be a bachelor for life. One of the bonuses he has with his company, is that the CEO has a daughter who is also Autistic/Severe Asperger's. Denny is his "go-to" guy for all things autistic/Asperger's. He's encouraged my son to fully participate in Autism Awareness, and has even sent him to the state capital to make a presentation before a state senate committee (you don't think my chest swells a bit??).
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