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Autism Defined

Autism is a complex developmental disability which is a result of a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain, impacting development in the areas of social interaction and communication skills.  People inflicted with this disorder show difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities.  It is one of five disorders that falls under the category of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), which is a category of neurological disorders characterized by “severe and pervasive impairment in several areas of development.”

Prevalence of Autism

   Autism is the most common of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2007 data states that autism affects an estimated 1 in 150 births, which means roughly today as many as 1.5 million Americans are believed to have some form of autism.  This number is on the rise!  The U.S. Department of Education and other governmental agencies report that autism is growing at a startling rate of 10-17 percent per year.  At this rate it is estimated that autism could reach 4 million Americans in the next decade.  Autism knows no racial, ethnic, social boundaries, family income, lifestyle, or educational levels and can affect any family, and any child.  Autism is also four times more prevalent in boys than in girls.

Cause of Autism  

There is no known single cause for autism.  Researchers are investigating a number of theories, including the link between heredity, genetics and medical problems.  More specifically researchers are looking at problems during pregnancy or delivery, environmental factors and even vaccines.

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability- to try to help people who have
not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...When you're
going to have a baby; it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books
and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may
learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours
later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, Welcome to Holland."  "Holland?!!" You say...
"What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of
going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plans. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The
important thing is that they have not landed in a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine
and disease. It's just a different place.  So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a
whole new language. And you will meet a whole group of people you would never have met.

Its just different place. It's slower paced that Italy. Less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a
while you catch your breath you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. And
Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy. And they're all bragging  about what a
wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to
go. That's what I had planned.

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant
loss.   But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy
the special, the very lovely things about Holland. 

Mothers Lie
By Lori Borgman

Expectant mothers waiting for a newborn's arrival say they don't care what sex the baby is. They just want to have ten fingers and ten toes.

Mothers lie.

Every mother wants so much more.
She wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin.
She wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.

She wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column two).
Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions.
She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class.
Call it greed if you want, but a mother wants what a mother wants.

Some mothers get babies with something more.

Maybe you're one who got a baby with a condition you couldn't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palate that didn't close.
The doctor's words took your breath away.
It was just like the time at recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming, and it knocked the wind right out of you.

Some of you left the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, took him in for a routine visit, or scheduled him for a checkup, and crashed head first into a brick wall as you bore the brunt of devastating news.
It didn't seem possible.
That didn't run in your family.
Could this really be happening in your lifetime?

There's no such thing as a perfect body.
Everybody will bear something at some time or another.
Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, therapy or surgery.
Mothers of children with disabilities live the limitations with them.

Frankly, I don't know how you do it.
Sometimes you mothers scare me.
How you lift that kid in and out of the wheelchair twenty times a day.
How you monitor tests, track medications, and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.

I wonder how you endure the clichés and the platitudes, the well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike.
I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy columns like this one-saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary.
You snap, you bark, you bite.
You didn't volunteer for this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling,
"Choose me, God. Choose me! I've got what it takes."

You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack.
You've developed the strength of the draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil.
You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.

You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability.
You're a neighbor, a friend, a woman I pass at church and my sister-in-law.
You're a wonder.

Lori Borgman is a syndicated columnist and author of All Stressed Up and No Place To Go.