Here's what happened....
It was around Christmas time of 2001 when we knew we had an issue with Jack. Toni was 8 months pregnant with Sophie at the time and Noah had just started pre-school that Fall.
Jack, who was just 1 1/2 at the time, had started to regress. Like most textbook instances of autism, Jack appeared to be developing in a typical fashion until he was about 15 months old. He was clearly not as advanced as Noah, but anybody who knew Noah was simply blown away by his vocabulary and comprehension. Thank God, to this day, Noah continues to amaze us with his language and thirst for knowledge...
Anyway, up until about 15 months, Jack was playing, saying about 10 words, slept well, ate well, etc... but by 20 months, his words simply went away. Ultimately, by Christmas, he was basically staring at Blues Clues videos, had no interest in the outside world, stopped playing completely, and stopped responding to his name.
After a visit to his regular pediatrician Toni took Jack for a hearing test. Toni was actually hoping he was deaf. Jack's hearing test went well and she scheduled a meeting with the NJ State Early Intervention.
At that point, Sophie was born and she was (and still is) fabulous! The Early Intervention team came to visit Jack and it was pretty obvious that we had a child with significant delays across the spectrum.
The Early Intervention team doesn't diagnose and they wouldn't put any labels on Jack, but they described a dis-order knows as sensory-integration disorder (SID) that Jack clearly demonstrated. At a simple level, a wiring problem in Jack's brain is not allowing him to gather senses appropriately. For example, the reason he didn't respond to his name being called is because he couldn't distinguish sounds coming toward him from ancillary sounds in the environment. In addition, he basically used his senses in inappropriate ways. What you and I might try to absorb into our brain via sound or touch, he would use his eyes.
Anyway, the Early Intervention team offered 2 hours of therapy a week - no speech therapy because he wasn't talking yet, but primarily occupational therapy focused on sensory integration.
Toni and I weren't satisfied with that answer and we started to research. Toni was certain that Jack had PDD (pervasive development disorder) a.k.a Autism. A visit to Barnes and Noble with the kids sleeping in their strollers confirmed that belief for me. When I started to see books about Sensory-Integration Disorder (i.e. The Out of Synch Child), mixed in with all the books about Autism my heart dropped. Then after simply scanning a few words about signs of autism it became clear.
Here were some of the signs:
1) Jack appetite became exceptionally limited - chicken nuggets (McDonalds ONLY!) and waffles pretty much was all he ate. Come to think of it, Jack would never eat foods of certain textures - even as an infant. He NEVER ate baby food... couldn't tolerate it.
2) Jack was addicted to a single TV show - Blues Clues - over and over again Blues Clues
Jack stopped interacting with the show at this point - he stopped waving his hands when Steve yelled "MAIL" at the end of the mailbox song and just stared.
3) Jack stared at the corners of tables and would even go off into the corner and stare at the woodwork on the wall
4) Jack would play with his own belly button constantly
5) Jack stopped paying attention to books being read to him - and would turn to only specific pages to hear specific songs sung to him - he became almost ritualistic with sleep
6) Jack's sleep patterns became very broken - he would wake up and babble for upwards of 3 - 4 hours several nights a week
Toni and I decided that Jack had autism... simple as that and he needed treatment. Toni decided not to go back to work at that point - she had been teaching at Brookdale College in Holmdel, but she instead dedicated herself to Jack.
Of course we didnt have an official diagnosis yet, but we finally found a peditric neurologist with less than a 6 month waiting list up at Mt. Sinai in the Bronx and Dr. Sybille Wallace officially diagnosed Jack with autism.
Our journey had begun.... ugh.
