The Most Important Early Intervention!

                Sometimes I am asked how I have been able to handle my son having autism so well, and to be honest I have wondered that myself at times. The truth is the day of and after his diagnosis that was not the case.  I was a mess in every way. Crying and scared for him, but through my tears I saw a little boy who was not crying. He didn’t care If he had autism or not and he was waiting for me to feel the same way he did. Thank God I realized this as quickly as I did and it didn’t take long for me to snap out of my sadness. I had already learned so much from him I needed to pay attention to his complete acceptance of himself. Yes, he is only a toddler so how would he understand right? To me that was the beauty of it. Born this way and so far he is completely accepting of that. As his mom I knew it was my job to do whatever I could to keep him feeling that way.

                I have a general rule in life and I have had to use it many times. Have a good cry and get it out, then take a deep breath, gather your thoughts and move forward. After all it’s really the only choice you have and how you choose to do it will determine just how your spirit will feel while you’re leaving whatever struggle just hit behind. Or in the case of autism, moving forward with it being a daily part of our life.

                One thing you will always read or hear about with autism is early intervention. Take action right away and that will create the greatest outcome. I think one statement everyone in the autism community agrees on completely. For me that wasn’t just about therapies and what you would consider your typical intervention. It began with that first step in my own mind to take a deep breath and move forward in a completely accepting way. I would even go as far as saying this was the first and most important early intervention I could give him. Not only would that show the people closest to him to do the same but I just didn’t see a way to move forward without doing that.

                Doing that one small thing would not only set the bar for how he feels about himself but for every source of intervention that was to come his way from that point on. His first therapy appointments I heard a lot of, autistic kids don’t do that. Let’s work on this and that so he can learn to be more socially adjusted. I am not autistic but the two words socially adjusted have always made me giggle. What comes to mind is, when you’re done with him can you help me and hundreds of other people I can think of?

                I was his first early intervention and fixing his autism was not how we would be moving forward. Finding what his autism can bring to his life and building on that was and is what we will be doing. As far as socially adjusted goes we will work on that to but I don’t see either one of us receiving our etiquette diploma anytime soon.  Being a little socially different is not a curse but if you really take a good look at society in general I would consider this a gift. One I have been grateful to have most of my life and if I do things right he will grow up to feel the same way.