A new chapter in our life Feb '07

Hi Jacob

We are now starting a new chapter in our lives. We are now in the autism world. On Feb 2nd we found out that you have Autism along with ADHD. We feel blessed that you finally got the help that you needed so bad. And that we finally got an answer to the questions we have always had about you. When you was born you were always moving around. You crawled early, and walked early! We just thought that you was going to be early at everything. I am fluent in sign language and so I always wanted my kids to know and love sign language like me. When you was a year old I started teaching you sign language. You was getting pretty good and knew a lot of signs and used that for everything. When you was around 2 1/2 I noticed that you weren't talking and that it seemed pretty weird. You was my first so I just figured that you would catch up soon. I started to blame myself because I thought it was because I taught you sign language and had you use that instead of his words. You was also very active. I hated taking you to other peoples houses because you was always running around and getting into all of their stuff. you would turn on and off lights and shut all the doors...it was just emberassing. Again, I knew that was a little strange, but I never thought anything of it. We lived in Texas at the time and 2 months after you turned 3 we moved back to Arizona. My aunt stacy was visiting and telling me that you really dont have good speech and that we should get you tested to see if you can go to the preschool program that the public school has. So we got you tested and you passed with flying colors! So we got you in and you started to prgress amazingly!!! IN a year you went from NO words to 2 word sentances. We were so happy that you were talking and we were starting to understand you more. Lets fastforward to December '06. You are still very hyper and your speech is starting to get so much better. But now you have weird behaviors...you are very viloent to yourself and to other people. You wont look into your eyes when people talk to you and you wander off and will dart in front of cars without even knowing what he is doing. I go in to a meeting with his teacher and she tells me that she is concerned with you, Jacob and your behaviors. She told me that you are the worst kid that she has seen in the hyperness and not being able to focus on anything. So she said it would be wise to take you into his ped and see what he thought. So we did and immidiatly he told us that he would like us to go to a developmental pediatrition and see what they think. So Feb 2nd comes and we go to our appt. Within 30 min of being there she already knew that you had autism. I kinda prepared myself for that going in because I was 90% sure thats what you had. But I thought he had a form called Aspergers. I didnt know that he was worse than I thought. She diagnosed you with Severe ADHD, High Functioning Moderate Autism, Developmental delay, and a speech delay. I was so overwhelmed when she told me that I just broke down! I was a mess, and I still am. We are still getting used to the autism diagnosis and every day I find something different that you do that makes me say...hmm yep I see the autism in you. But we are so proud at the work you do to make yourself better. We love you so much buddy.

Love

Mommy