Blue Avatars, Autism Awareness & Not-So-Random Acts of Kindness

This week I changed my Facebook profile picture because my teenage son has Aspergers and April is “Autism Awareness” month.

My guy was diagnosed just before his fourth birthday. We were told he would never function in a typical classroom and not to expect that prognosis to change. At the time of the diagnosis he spoke only in small chunks of language that he had memorized from Disney cartoons. He had behavioral outbursts that made it impossible to take him places without public meltdowns. Despite the doctor’s lack of encouragement (or more likely because of it) we dove into traditional and non-traditional treatments.

Today our son is in 10th grade at our local High School. He takes Japanese and pre-AP courses, runs Cross Country and participates in various clubs at school and in the community. He’s funny, articulate and he’s going to be okay. He still struggles at times reading social cues and can appear a little quirky, but we are confident that he will go on to college, get a job and support himself.