The story of Waylon's diagnosis

During the summer of 2008, I was pregnant with Rose Mary, and Waylon was just about 18 months old. He was starting to babble, and one day when we left my doctor's appointment in Olathe he exclaimed, "car!" when he spotted our car in the parking lot. Over time though, he quit babbling, and when he started to ignore us when we called his name, we were concerned about his hearing. But at his two-year check-up, the doctor said he was simply behind because he had an older brother to talk for him. After a few more months without any progress, we scheduled an appointment with an audiologist. When we saw the audiologist in the Spring of 2009, she said his hearing was fine, but she was concerned that he didn't respond to the hearing test like most kids do. She suggested we see a developmental pediatrician. It took us nearly 5 months to get an appointment to see a developmental pediatrician in Overland Park. In September 2009, Dr. Hoffman told my Mom and I that Waylon had an Autism Spectrum Disorder. He gave us a few papers with different treatments that we could try, suggested a few books, and sent us on our way.

We had no idea how much we had to learn about the world of autism.

Luckily, we found a flyer on the Autism Society of the Heartland. They had several weekly information sessions in October that were presented by Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, and other professionals that work with kids with autism. We learned a lot. But we also learned that we had a lot of work to do! So we started trying lots of different therapies.

Waylon has made a lot of progress with all of his therapy, but he still goes through phases where he regresses and seems to struggle. We feel as though we are in a race to get Waylon as far as we can before kindergarten. Every teacher that he has had so far has a degree in special education, and works with Waylon because they truly love special needs kids. Once we enter his grade school years, we will enter a whole new set of challenges. We hope Waylon will be able to attend the same elementary school that our other kids will attend.

One of the best pieces of advice we have received at our monthly support group meetings for parents of children with autism: "Remember that parenting special needs kids is a marathon, not a sprint." We have to pace ourselves now, because we have a long road ahead of us.