How our journey began…
1997 Matthew was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I knew what that was I had seen it in others growing up. He had all the symptoms, fidgeting, easily distracted, interruption, and constant motion. What I didn’t see, that was there, were the other cues that would have lead us to an autism diagnosis, non-verbal, wandering, lack of eye contact, lack of certain milestones.
I always attributed these to other things. The non-verbal was attributed, in my mind, to constant ear infections that lead to tubes, once those were placed I thought “okay, he can hear now” he was always able to hear, it just took work with the Speech Therapist to get him talking. For the next 10 years I attributed everything to ADHD, because I lacked knowledge. That is not a bad thing just a statement of fact. Please note: We are NOT bad parents for not knowing everything!!
Fast forward to 2008, I had strong concerns that Matthew was depressed; I took him to our local mental health clinic. The psychologist was with him all of 5 minutes before asking me if he had ever been tested for autism. I am sure, at that moment, I had a deer in the headlights look. I had never heard of Autism before, let alone had him tested. The psychologist shared some of the behaviors he saw in Matthew that made him ask me, shared a little about autism and sad to ask to his pediatrician for a referral.
When I went home that day, the first thing I did was go on to what we all know as “Google University”, I had to know more about what autism was and what it might mean for Matthew. Yes, I know not to believe everything I read on the internet but I had to have a better understanding. While reading through I remember thinking “okay, that makes sense” maybe there is something to this suggestion. So I called and made an appointment to discuss with his pediatrician.
When we met with his pediatrician she didn’t necessarily think he had autism, but knew she wasn’t qualified to make that diagnosis and knew me well enough that I wouldn’t let this go until I got the question answered, so she gave us a referral to the Center for Child Health & Development at the University of Kansas Medical Center. There our first appointment was a Diagnostic Interview that ultimately referred us to a full team evaluation that led to his autism diagnosis in January 2009.
And so our autism journey began…