Autism Society of Larimer County

y Can't We Face The Truth? Having An Autistic Child Wrecks Your Life...       By Carol Sarler on dailymail.co.uk .  tiny.pl/vcd2       Thanks to a moment of everyday terror, I think I knew before anyone else. My friend's two-year-old had climbed upon a chair from which, with customary toddler clumsiness, he fell.       Like all children, he managed a second of stunned silence - then howled like a banshee. Like all adults, I rushed to pick him up, to cuddle, to soothe.       What was unexpected was his response: visibly fearful of my touch, he kicked my belly, disengaged himself and ran away.       A life sentence: Many parents of autistic children have to give up their jobs to become full-time carers (picture posed by models) I added that to the list I was already mentally composing: no eye contact, ever. Not even with his mum. No shred of attachment to toys, pets, people. Obsessive, repetitive behaviour. Crazed by the sight of other children. Hmm.       By his fourth birthday, still with nappies, but without speech, everyone else knew, too.       Tom was - I mean is, and always will be - autistic. I've been thinking a lot about Tom, who's now seven, as the debate rages over the possibility of a prenatal test for autism, with abortion then optional.       And, so far, most of the argument leans towards such a test being undesirable and unethical.       Brave and devoted mothers - notably Charlotte Moore, whose book, George And Sam, about her two autistic sons, is immensely powerful - have clung to the positives brought into their lives by their children.       Backing the emphasis on the positive have been those who point to the frequently high intelligence of the autistic savant, as if we are talking about phalanxes of Mozarts and Einsteins.       How much poorer we would be without, say, the astonishing brain of Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man! Who would or could babysit this child? Well, maybe. But not as poor as Tom's family: three generations of lives - I include his own - wrecked, for ever, by his cussed condition.       His parents, let us call them Cath and John, bear the brunt. Immediately after diagnosis, she beat herself senseless with blame; so many theories, each making it her fault.       Should she have allowed her son to have had the MMR jab? Was it, as some said, a behavioural disturbance caused by 'bad' parenting? Once, she even convinced herself (from something she'd read) that it was mercury poisoning from eating tuna during her pregnancy.       Theories, however, were soon to defer to practicalities. They strove for a normal life: simple things, such as going shopping together.       But with the best will in the world, how many shops - or, indeed, how many customers - are going to tolerate a child who screams, bites, defecates and destroys everything within reach? Besides, dangers lurk. Last time I bumped into them in a supermarket car park, Tom was bawling hysterically. Why? Because he had seen a bird. So, mostly, Cath and John stay at home.         Both their careers are over - not, as for many with small children, on hold for a few years. Each knows that neither will work full-time again.       There have been attempts with special schools, but none succeeded. Sanity is preserved by each parent having a hobby (fishing and tennis), so one babysits while the other takes a break.       They rarely go out together, for who else - other than one plucky grandmother - would, or even could, babysit this child? + Read more: tiny.pl/vcd2