So we got the diagnoses, but now what do we do? Early intervention is Key! Noah started school at the age of 3. He was in Head Start for special needs kids. On his first day of school, our neighbor, a big, tough, tattooed construction worker was sitting in his truck. He always had a big place in his heart for Noah. We had told him about the diagnoses and starting school. He saw us waiting for the bus that morning and he later told us that when the bus pulled up and he saw Noah's reaction - unabashed GLEE, joy, happiness and laughter with the total absence of any fear what-so-ever, our neighbor said he cried in his truck as he watched Noah happily board the bus.

In Head Start, Noah had the best teachers any mom could ever ask for. It was slow going at first but they got him on the road to verbal expression. The teacher called my cell phone one day in tears - of joy - because Noah had called her by name for the first time.

I enrolled Noah is outside speech therapy classes. It was a major waste of time - only because of the limited choices of therapists I had to choose from. Noah would lay face down on the floor and refuse to participate. The "therapist" would then try to pick him up and promptly get kicked - then stare at me as if I was the worst mother in the world for not punishing him for it. I would then remind her as I did in every visit, "he has Autism, he doesn't like to be touched by strangers." Finally one day she flat admitted she could not help him. When I asked about another therapist, she spoke for them all and said no one at her facility - Children's Healthcare of Atlanta - could help my child. Did you know that Thomas Edison's teacher said that Edison was "addled" and could not be taught and thus kicked him out of school 3 months after he began?

The following year Noah had a new teacher who reminded me of "The Miracle Worker" (Helen Keller's teacher). Noah advanced by leaps and bounds in her class and in every area! She was an amazing teacher with no end to her patience and no end to resourcefulness.

Meanwhile my husband and I were still dealing with some tough behavioral problems from Noah at home. We didn't know what to do for ourselves - the rest of the family - who were clearly suffering as a result of so much turmoil. Why didn't anyone have parenting classes for parents of Autistic Spectrum kids? Well, they do now, but even so, they are so far away, with kids in school or kids in tow it was impossible for us to attend. We have no family close by and the neighbors, once they caught wind of the Autism thing, acted as if it were contagious and refused to baby sit for us - even though Noah did not get crazy at other people's houses. But they refused to baby sit our other kids as well, conveniently forgetting I had baby sat their kids every single weekday for 2 years absolutely free!

And so begins the distancing from friends and even relatives, the unsolicited advice from people who could not even provide the definition of Autism, but worst of all was the reaction from the public.

To be continued...

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL