April is Autism Awareness month so I wanted to take this time to tell Josiah’s story and our battle with getting our precious little boy back from the brinks of Autism. I am sure it'll take at least a few posts so check back often.
We'll start at the beginning. As an infant it took a lot to get Josiah to smile, but he was such a good baby. I never had any complaints and didn’t think much about his lack of emotion until much later. I figured he was so good because I was so busy being the mom of three young boys that he had to be more compliant. I remember telling his pediatrician when he was about seven months old that I was concerned because he rocked a lot when he was in the sitting position. She told me not to worry; a lot of babies do this.
When Josiah was 8 months old he got tubes put in his ears, we were hoping that this would help him start talking/babbling more since he had some hearing loss. This operation didn’t change anything with our little boy’s vocabulary, but he did start hearing a lot better.
When he turned a year old, he stopped saying the few words he knew. He became a very difficult child. He would scream about everything. It was very stressful taking him anywhere because he would scream when I got him in the cart (or at least tried to get him in), but he would also scream when I would hold him. Nothing worked. We resorted to staying at home and if I needed to do anything I did it when Monte got home from work. I figured we had a strong willed child in the works.
This went on until he was 18 months old and had another baby well check up. I expressed that my concern now was that he is not talking. She again didn’t seem very concerned, but I was adamant that I thought something was wrong. She told me that she would schedule an evaluation with First Steps. First Steps is a program in Indiana which provides early intervention services to children birth to three years of age, who have developmental delays or are developmentally at risk.
We moved to the west side of Indianapolis April 15 of 2006 and Josiah had his evaluation on May 17, he was 2 days shy of being 22 months. A speech therapist and developmental therapist took an hour to evaluate him in many different areas. I knew without a doubt that he was behind in speech, but honestly I didn’t feel he was delayed in any other area. I am the type of person who likes information. I don’t like things to be hidden from me so I was asking lots of questions. They were very good and answered my questions. They told me that Josiah was behind in many different areas developmentally and they gave me a suggestion of a book to read. Needless to say I was in shock. I had so many more things I wanted to ask them, but at that moment I was just surviving and no longer functioning. I don’t remember how long I cried, but I do remember it was a while. This was a very sad day in my life.
Soon there after I went to the bookstore and got the book that they suggested “The Out of Sync Child.” This was a book about Sensory Integration Disorder. I had never heard of anything like this, so I had a lot to learn. The book fascinated me because it was like they came into our house and wrote a book about Josiah. I shed many tears over this book as I slowly realized I had a child with special needs.
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