We're Rick and Joanne Pawlak from Indiana. We have two kids: Nathan, who is six, and Ellie, who is three. Nathan was diagnosed with autism when he was three years old. When that happened we didn't know a single other family going through it, and we felt more alone than we ever had in our lives. Since then we've met dozens of wonderful families, many of them online. This page is our way of saying: you're not alone either.

We're not doctors or therapists. We're a mom and a dad who have learned a lot the hard way. Every child with autism is different, so please talk to your own doctors and therapists about your child.

Nathan has blond hair that sticks straight up in back, a laugh you can hear from the next block, and the best memory of anyone in this family. He can tell you the name and number of every engine on Thomas the Tank Engine, and he knows which way every ceiling fan in Grandma's house turns.

Here's how we explain it to the neighbors. Autism is a developmental disability that shows up in the first few years of life. It affects how a child communicates, how they get along with other people, and how they handle the world around them. Lots of kids with autism have trouble with language, like to have things the same every day, and are very sensitive to sounds, textures or lights. Some have a hard time with all of it and some just a little. That's why doctors call it a spectrum. Boys get it more often than girls.

It's nobody's fault. It's not bad parenting (yes, somebody said that to us, at church). Doctors don't know yet what causes it, and there's no cure, but with the right help kids with autism learn and grow. Nathan is proof of that.

HE STARTED KINDERGARTEN! He's in a regular classroom for most of the day with an aide who sits near him, and he goes to the special ed resource room for part of the morning. We practiced for weeks with a picture book we made of his new school, the classroom, the bus and his teacher. The first day he walked in, found the train table in about four seconds, and didn't look back. Joanne cried in the parking lot. Rick says he didn't. (He did.)

Three years ago Nathan had no words at all. Last week he said "Daddy, look, the freight train is going SO fast!" If you're just starting out, hold on to that.