Living with a disability can be difficult. Living with someone who has a disability can be even more difficult. And living with someone who has a disability and no one even knows it can make life down right miserable. I can share from personal experience that some disabilities are hard to identify, even for medical professionals. Our son has autism, and he was in his teens before he was diagnosed. Had we had some sort of education on what to look for, it would have made life easier for all of us.

Autism is a painful disorder for parents to accept and understand. Learning all you can about autism will help alleviate some of your sorrow and frustration. Autism occurs in one out of every 10,000 live births, and is about three times more prevalent in boys than in girls. Here are some of the signs that you can look for:

1. Accept that autism causes lifelong developmental disabilities, and is a physical disorder of the brain. You did not cause your child’s autism.

2. Know that the symptoms of autism can occur alone or in combination with other conditions, like mental retardation, epilepsy, deafness, ADHD and blindness.
3. Scientists do not know what causes autism. There is speculation that autism can be inherited through a gene. If you have an autistic child, you have a 2-3% chance of having a second autistic child.
4. Recognize that autism is a severe form of multiple developmental disorders that include impairments in communication skills, stereotypes (rituals), and poor play skills.
5. Differentiate autism from other childhood developmental disorders through professional evaluation. Autism is different from mental retardation because autistic children shun social interaction, whereas the mentally retarded child enjoys social interaction. Autism is different from childhood schizophrenia because the autistic child does not have hallucinations and delusions.
6. Understand that signs of autism are apparent by the time a child is three years old. However, some parents do not seek professional evaluation for their child until he is older. Usually, the more severe the symptoms, the earlier a diagnosis is made.

For our son, it involves trips to the doctor and constant monitoring of his medications. He will never have a normal everyday life as we know it, but hopefully someday he will be able to live on his own. He is 20 now, and has made great progress in the past eight years.

Do you have a question that you want answered? So do we! But we’re at a loss for the answer to our question. So why don’t you just ask us your question at How Do I? and see if either we can or one of our many viewers can answer it? Maybe…

Tags: autism children, child autism, autism symptoms, autism treatment, autism research, autism, autistic