Joanne writes:

Nathan was an easy baby. He slept well and hardly ever fussed. By his first birthday he had a handful of words: ball, juice, Mama. Somewhere around eighteen months, the words went away. He stopped turning when we called his name. He'd sit for an hour spinning the wheels of one toy truck, and if you tried to join in he'd get up and walk away.

We had his hearing tested. It was fine. Our pediatrician said boys often talk late and we should give it time. Everybody had a story about a cousin who didn't say a word until he was four. We wanted so badly to believe them.

When Nathan was two and a half, his Sunday school teacher took me aside, very kindly, and asked if we'd ever had him evaluated. I was furious with her for about a day. Then I called our state's early intervention program, and a speech therapist started coming to the house twice a week.

In the spring of 1996, just after Nathan turned three, a developmental pediatrician in Indianapolis watched him play for two hours, asked us about a hundred questions, and told us Nathan has autism. I was eight months pregnant with Ellie. I remember she handed me a box of tissues and a list of phone numbers, and that I couldn't read the list because I was crying too hard.

Rick writes:

The drive home was an hour and a half and neither of us said a word. When we got home I went out to the garage and sat in the truck for a long time. I'm not proud of that, but I'm being honest, because I think a lot of dads do the same thing and nobody talks about it.

What got me out of the truck was Joanne coming out with a library book and saying, "Okay. What do we do first?" So we did the first thing, and then the next thing.

Ellie was born six weeks later, healthy and loud. That summer Nathan started at the school district's special preschool, because in our state that's where the help comes from once a child turns three. We also started a home program based on applied behavior analysis, ABA for short, with a consultant who trained a crew of college students. They worked with him at our kitchen table about twenty-five hours a week, breaking everything down into tiny steps and cheering like crazy for every one. Our kitchen table has never been the same and we wouldn't change it.

We started using picture cards so Nathan could ask for things, and he figured out fast that handing us the picture of juice got him juice. The first time he did that, Joanne and I looked at each other like he'd just recited the Gettysburg Address. His first real spoken word came six months later. It was "train." Of course it was.

Where we are now

Three years later Nathan talks in short sentences, reads better than some second graders, and is in a regular kindergarten class with help. He still has meltdowns, still hates haircuts, still needs things just so. Some days are really hard. But he's happy, he's learning, and he's Nathan. We wouldn't trade him for any other kid in the world.

If you just got the diagnosis: breathe. Cry if you need to. Then find one thing to do first. And write to us if you want. We remember that drive home.

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Last updated August 29, 1999