Autism and the Family (1)

A mother talks about problems she had in obtaining a diagnosis for her autistic son.

There was something different about Laurie. He is eighteen months younger than my daughter, so I was very aware of what a child should do, if you like. And he didn’t interact with us as a baby – although he was talking, he wasn’t talking to us, he was just using words. Unfortunately we then had to wait eleven months to see the speech and language therapist. At that point I thought he was seeing a speech and language therapist because he had a slight lisp. So I was waiting to see the pediatrician, saw the speech and language therapist who said, “Well, of course he is autistic,” because she thought I knew. So, we had this gentle breaking to us of the situation and then she backtracked and said “I’m terribly sorry; I can’t make a diagnosis,” but that is when it was mentioned, the word was mentioned.