Living with Autism

In November of last year we took foster placement of our 12 year old nephew. In his life we have heard about how bad he is and temper tantrums that we couldn’t really believe. When we took him into our home we started noticing little behaviors that didn’t make sense.

He was not ADHD, the symptoms were different. Sometimes he appeared to be in his own world or like he was deaf when people talked to him. We struggled to figure it out. Prior to him coming to us, he did not get much medical or personal care, so at first we just thought it was due to a lack of those things. After a few weeks we started questioning other things and decided to have him assessed at the local Mental Retardation office, they found him to be mildly autistic.

Since this diagnoses we understand so many of his personal traits and why he has them. Now with the knowledge we will be able to work on treatment and being more understanding on him as a person! It is a great feeling to understand him and to know that with this we will learn to help him too! I just wish his Mother had taken the time to figure it out and work with him at a younger age - it may have made a big difference in their relationship and his life!