Look at these two boys. Are they not the cutest, most beautiful little boys on earth? It sure seems that way to me. Looking at them in this picture, don’t they just look healthy and normal and wonderful?
Well, they are wonderful, but they’re not healthy and not normal (a word I detest, by the way). Charlie was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder almost three years ago. I began to suspect Charlie was different when he was around 15 months old, became very concerned by the time he was 18 months old and knew before we ever stepped foot in the Kaiser Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic that he was autistic. When we received his diagnosis, my only surprise was that it was PDD-NOS rather than classic autism. Of course, there was some denial, but that was mostly external. Inside, I knew.
