At seven years of age, I thought Brian was a bit eccentric but otherwise pretty normal. He was aloof, didn't respond to affection well and could be very nasty to his little brother, but then there are plenty of seven-year-old boys like that around the world. He always asked so many questions, far more than normal, and was obsessed with how things work.
My wife is a professional working with children, and she was the first to raise the possibility of Brian having Aspergers syndrome. I disagreed, especially as Brian was pretty similar to me as a child and I turned out okay. But Brian was seen by the school guidance officer who said Aspergers was a possibility. The next stop was the neighborhood doctor who agreed enough to make a referral to a pediatrician.
The assessment process
The pediatrician agreed that it was full-blown Asperger’s and explained about the Autistic Spectrum Disorders and then referred us to the Children & Youth Mental Health Service where a psychiatrist spent time talking to all of us and watching how we all interacted as the kids played with toys in his office. What surprised me was that the psychiatrist spent so much time asking me questions and about my father, brothers and sisters. Wasn't Brian the one suspected of Aspergers or Autism? I figured all of this was just to rule out a dysfunctional family being the cause of his behavior.
A surprising diagnosis
I was bowled over when the psych said Brian had Aspergers syndrome, and I did too! At first I was just stunned, then eventually got quite angry – how could this psychiatrist diagnose me from just chatting for a while?
Julie was very upset by the diagnosis for some months, and perhaps felt a bit despairing of the situation. It’s hard to know as we did drift apart for a while – I thought she may have thought I was the cause if I had Aspergers too, and it was just a difficult time all round.
I think I just pushed all the feelings aside about Brian's diagnosis, and I was very ambivalent about it. I mean what does it really mean? People were saying Einstein probably had Aspergers, and maybe Bill Gates does too, as if Aspergers meant you could be rich and famous. To me, Brian was simply an intelligent, healthy boy who could communicate, but simply had issues in some areas, and strengths in other areas.
The various health professionals we saw probably thought I was denial, as I just thought we’ll just do the best we can whatever the situation. I put other things on hold and decided to just focus on Brian and see what we could do to help him.
Compensating for weaknesses
As for me, I don't know if I'm happy to wear the label of Aspergers syndrome. I'm married and have been for 17 years, although we certainly have our ups and downs. My work history is pretty patchy but we've done okay. I'm really just focusing on early interventions for Brian and helping him to work out how to make friends, see things from other points of view and learn better communication skills. I don't really know if I'm happy for him to wear the label of Asperger’s syndrome either. We never really refer to it with him, but just say that like any kid, he has specific strengths and weaknesses. Like everyone else, he just has to make full use of his strengths, and learn how to compensate for the weaknesses.
I think that many adults today might be on the autism spectrum, but were never formally diagnosed as kids because the knowledge that is available today was just not available when we were growing up (not to mention ways of obtaining the knowledge that was available via internet and such).
Our daughter seemed, for the most part to be progressing fairly normally as far as crawling (at about 8 months), walking (at about 15 months), talking (don't remember exactly when, but seemed about average), etc. However, when she began attending nursery school at a year-and-a half, she was not socializing with the other kids, prefered to sit in the corner and just rock around and at home, she would always be extra, extra clingy to mom and have tantrums for no reason.
During her second year of nursery school (at around age 3), a social worker came to the school to observe our daughter and was quite blunt with us----"It's bad!!" were her exact words.
That summer we brought our daugther to a certified child psychologist (we wanted to get her diagnosed long before, but the beaurocracy can be a night-mare here in Israel; however, once you get past the red-tape, the services for special needs children in Israel is amazing) who diagnosed our daugther with PDD-NOS.
I can't say I was absolutely shocked, as my wife and I suspected well before, but no matter how prepared you are for something, there is always shock when you get it confirmed "officially". I guess what makes it frustrating (or "confusing" might be a better word to use) is that our daughter is VERY intelligent in many ways----with her numbers, letters, colors, animals, etc., she expresses herself well verbally in two languages (hebrew and english), recites all her songs and prayers that she learns at nursery school, knows all her books (while she might not REALLY be reading, but knows what is coming up next in every book when we read to her). So, on the one hand, our daughter seems to be "above average", but on the other hand, she seems to be "behind" like with socialization skills, being aware of her surroundings, responding appropriately within context, etc.
I must say though, as I mentioned in my first introductory post, that our daughter is doing MUCH better since she was diagnosed and placed in the proper nursery school environment, so there is MUCH hope.
As for me, I might have had a degree of PDD myself. Based on my nursery school experiences (lacking social skills, sitting in the corner playing alone for hours, etc.) it is certainly possible. There are some differences between how I behaved as a toddler versus my daugher in that I never had a problem occupying myself, did not have tantrums, and was not over clingy to my mother. However, whether or not, I have PDD, I, like you, am solely concerned with my daughter's future and doing everything I need to do to make sure my daughter achieves to the best of her ability and live out the best life possible because she deserves no less.
Best of luck to you and everyone else on this forum with your children. It seems like we all have hard work ahead of us, but that it will be worth it because children are a blessing and children are our future.