A Followup
2005-02-14, 10:29 p.m.

Postscript to the previous entry:

Thank you all for your hugs and kind words. I apologize for not cluing you in to Son’s modus operandi. You can read an excellent description of Asperger’s Syndrome here. I particularly like this: “A few people with Asperger's syndrome are very successful and until recently were not diagnosed with anything but were seen as brilliant, eccentric, absent minded, socially inept, and a little awkward physically.” Asperger’s is generally considered part of the autistic spectrum, not actual autism, but related. Son appears for the most part as a healthy, normal little boy. Often it is not until he is with peers that the differences are obvious. Most days it’s like raising a very hyperactive Data from Star Trek: TNG.
Son was diagnosed when he was three, after we pursued speech therapy through our town’s incredible public school system. The Special Ed Director got him in with an excellent pediatric neurologist within a week, and he is the one who watched Son walk across the room and said, “We have problems here.” Thus began the gamut of testing, three years of Special Ed preschool, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and the overall coddling and spoiling of a very special little boy.

Even the Special Education Director says they’ve never seen anything like him.

As a tearful and fearful mother at the initial diagnosis, I asked the neurologist what to expect. Would he function as a “normal” human being? Would he grow to have any real quality of life? Was my child destined to be “Rainman”?

The neurologist responded that, at neurological conferences, one of the more amusing activities was to “diagnose” public figures that are widely suspected to have certain disorders. The one whom Son most closely mimics?

Bill G@tes.

I can deal with that.

Here he is, with his punch balloon he got as his Valentine’s gift:

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