Autism Spectrum Disorder

[jimhines]

So a little while back, I was pondering how much to publicly share about family, particularly my children.  There was a reason for this.

Today we received confirmation from my son’s school that he meets their criteria for ASD — Autism Spectrum Disorder.

It’s not completely unexpected.  My wife is a practicing counselor.  I’ve got a degree in psych.  Both of us had noticed certain behavioral issues.

Jackson¹ is a brilliant little kid, and he’s very high functioning.  He is who he is.  A note from the school doesn’t change that.  What it does is gives us a way to make sure he gets the help he needs in school.

Next steps are to meet with the school this afternoon, and to talk to someone about a medical diagnosis.  (If he meets the school’s criteria, the odds are very good that he’ll meet the medical criteria as well, since the schools … well, since it costs them money to provide special ed. services, they’re motivated to minimize the false positives.)

I’m still processing this, and probably will be for a very long time.

I’m not asking for advice, and I’m not currently in a space where I’m interested in hearing it.  If you decide to comment and tell me what I should do, there’s a very good chance your comment will be deleted.

He’s a good kid.  I know he’s going to be okay.  I know the rest of us will, too.  But it’s hard right now.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, so I’m going to just share a picture.

(This was from two years back.  Jackson was sick.  It’s one of my favorite pictures.)

—

1. That’s the name he chose for himself for Daddy’s blog ↩

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[synecdochic]

I totally grok the "I cannot listen to people pontificate at me", so I shall simply say: Good luck with the medical diagnosis, and with processing time -- it's a tough thing to come to terms with. Best wishes to you and your wife, and to Jackson!

[jimhines]

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm a bit twitchy about unsolicited advice at the best of times. This morning? Not a lot of patience there...

[synecdochic]

Oh, I understand so much.In my case the unsolicited advice is usually aimed at me, and medical, and I usually want to strangle somebody.

I have a few friends who have children with autism, ranging from the mild to the severe, so if you'd like to be put in touch with them to ask questions of someone who's been there, just let me know. You have all my good thoughts.