For decades, medical experts were puzzled by the reasons for the bizarre behavior exhibited by some children both here in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Our family also personally experienced the similar long period of wonderment, having had a son diagnosed with this condition at an early age.
Most recently, we are told from medical experts here in the U.S. that children born today have a chance in 166 of being diagnosed with autism by the time they reach 3 years of age. Even today, this condition identified as childhood Autism is very puzzling and the behavior is sometimes very bizarre. The mystery, which it was to us, was that our son grew to slightly over 1 year old before we, or anyone else noticed anything unusual in the normal child development standards that we were aware of. He began saying "dada" and "mama" slightly before he reached one year old. He did not walk at one year, but many children don't either. It was when he reached about 14 months and abruptly stopped saying the words "dada" and "mama" that we realised there was something wrong. At first, we didn't want to believe it, but we began seeing his pediatrician and asking questions. Still, everyone would say, "he'll grow out of it". Eventually, we took our son to Mary Hitchcock hospital in the western part of New Hampshire for evaluation and after a couple of days of testing, he was finally diagnosed with Autism.
Some Things We Have Learned...And Wondered
Over the years, having lived with our son and experienced his ups and downs, his joys and sadness, as we could understand his reactions to life's daily stimuli, we still wonder about "him", as he is now approaching the age of 39 years and in the past several years living in a group home. Even with all those passing years, our son has not changed in his identity...i.e., he is still the son we have known from the beginning. At times, parents of an autistic child might wonder if it was something they did not give the child when they were in the early stages of their development, but the truth is that usually the autistic child is given much more attention than their siblings. It is not a matter of looking back at where a parent might have gone wrong in rearing the child, but to move on and treat the individual with the respect that is deserving and try to understand that individual as much as possible. Sometimes, one wonders if our son or daughter is now, or was born mentally retarded. We are told that autism is not a form of mental retardation and that some perform at a higher intelligence than normal. Even Albert Einstein was thought to have been autistic.
Will We Ever Learn The Mystery ?
There is much ongoing research into the possible causes of autism, but as yet no conclusive proof. Some seem to think that genetics might be the culprit and have found some clues from findings thus far, but there is much research in this area that has to be done before a method can be found that could possibly prevent it. One thing that is pretty conclusive is that autism is not caused by a lack of loving and caring for the child. I also have drawn an almost obvious conclusion from all of this and that is, in all of life's experiences, no one has ever conclusively been given reason for their actions, as to why they commit crimes of all sorts, taking their own lives for example, to kill others using explosives, as is being done in some parts of the world... then how can even the most well learned experts ever begin to know the source cause of Autism ?
