Every fall, parents share back-to-school photos of their children's smiling and excited faces. My son Ben's first day of preschool photos show a different story. His face did not say I do not want to attend school today ; it said I do not want to attend school ever .
His dad said it was just a phase and he would be over it soon. But I saw it differently. A mother's intuition, perhaps.
For my son and many of the approximately 1 in 36 children in the U.S. on the autism spectrum (ASD), school is more of a challenge than a celebration.
He tolerates it but struggles with the expectations, pace, and pressure. Ben began preschool with a pending autism diagnosis. I initially raised a mild concern with the pediatrician after noticing we "missed" milestones like crawling and walking.
But I convinced myself I was overthinking it because he would make them up within weeks of the doctor's visits. He could communicate his needs, albeit one word at a time. Eat, hungry, up, out , puppy " Maisy ," and his personal favorite, "no thanks.
" It's called echolalia, and toddlers with ASD can stay in that stage longer than others, sometimes forever, and sometimes with non-verbal children, not at all. But then he started to read at two years old. We were impressed and particularly interested in what he was reading.
He had little inclination towards books but read construction signs, game instructions, and recipe ingredients. He would recognize and remember words but couldn't spell them. Ben is smart a.