Personal Narrative: My Child With Autism

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I was born in 1998. In 2001 Isabella was born, then in 2004 Joshua came along. Both of them changed me in small ways, but they paled in comparison to how the sibling I got in 2008 changed me. My mother brought home Zachary when I was nine and he immediately had me wrapped around his little finger. Two years passed and everything took an unexpected turn when Zachary was diagnosed with autism. On January 10, 2008, I met the most intriguing creature that I know today. Whenever I came home from school Zachary would run down the road chanting my name while giggling away. Just being around him would brighten my day, something about him seemed to completely change me even when he was just a baby. I was always the child that would get upset over the …show more content…

Zachary would no longer cheer my name when he came to greet me off the bus. In fact, his talking seemed to stop all together. He became distant. Potatoes with drawn on faces became his obsession and he would grasp at the air above him like he was catching butterflies for hours on end. The potato obsession and grasping at the air were both things that my mother had seen in an article about the autism, so she decided to take him to the doctor. After several tests the results came in, Zachary had autism. Suddenly, we were racing against time. If autism is caught before the age of three then there is a small chance to undo the effects. So, a specialist would come to my house to work with Zachary every week for months. His third birthday came and went with no significant changes. That is when he started to let my mother and I into his world. He enjoyed being around us and wanted us to play with him because we were those whom he felt the most comfortable around. By being part of his world, I had to learn a whole new way to communicate with him.In Zachary’s world it is his rules, which meant no speaking. That was difficult because I had to not only learn sign language , but I had to teach it to him as well. His lack of a voice did put a strain on my life because I would have to translate for those around us. Even with all of these troubles, Zachary overcame the difficulties of his language barrier and can get by without much of my

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