Asperger – For us in the beginning

I had all the hopes and dreams like any other pregnant mother. On a beautiful February day we brought our sweet daughter into this world. She was as perfect as anyone could hope for. Family members were quick to comment on how alert she was. Even at the tender hours of life, she seemed to be going over everything as if she wasn’t going to have enough time to take it all in. The following months continued on the same path. Being my first child, I had nothing to measure her growth, abilities, and interactions. She was always busy. FOREVER! When she was little, she had so much energy that we used to say we needed to bottle her and sell her. She literally went, went, went, until she dropped to the ground tired. Really! We found her several times on the ground as if she had been running and she literally ran out of energy and just fell to the ground asleep. We noticed that she had problems with other children when she played and did not make good friends. It was like she was bossy and the other kids reacted negatively to that. She has never been aggressive or mean, in fact quite the opposite. We continue to note how she realized things quickly and at a very young age. Puzzles, blocks, computer games, organizing things. She remembers everything she learns and loves to watch educational programs as well as research computers to learn almost anything. Sciences like geology, outer space, dinosaurs, Egypt, and medicine are her favorites. She excels in math and science.

In kindergarten, we finally bit the bullet we’d been trying to dodge for years and got her checked for ADHD, since she was still going back and forth all the time and still having trouble interacting with other kids. She was diagnosed with ADHD and she started taking medication. This helped, but we still noticed a difference. We went by truck like most parents would, thinking this was all ADHD. In third grade, two amazing teachers noticed that his handwriting was not where a third grader should be. Being naive parents, we thought that she was lazy or even rushed at her work. They told us they felt she had dysgraphia (a form of dyslexia that affects handwriting due to poor motor skills). The school worked to diagnose and begin helping her with dysgraphia. So now I was feeling bad because we waited too long to get the ADHD diagnosis and now we had missed the clues of a writing problem. We were transporting along with these two conditions now.

One day on the radio I heard someone talk about the website www.autismspeaks.org. I had heard of autism, but did not feel that my daughter had severe symptoms of autism; however, I still felt compelled to visit the site. Sure enough, when I went through her checklist, I still didn’t feel like she had autism. However, I did notice a link to something called Asperger’s Syndrome. This is where our little adventure begins! I was able to mentally put a check mark on so many things listed in Asperger’s Syndrome. What stood out to me the most at the time was the bad handwriting due to lack of motor skills. I also found little traits listed that I would never have thought to question. It was a moment! I literally wanted to cry, because for the first time I felt like I had found the reason why we didn’t understand our daughter and we could finally have the secret decoder ring in her possession to help us understand and help her.