Summary: My Personal Experience As A Child With ASD

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4. My Story of ASD 4.1 My Personal Experience as a Mother of a Child with ASD I decided to have a child when I was 28 years old, after being married for seven years. Among my reasons to wait with that decision was my need to overcome one of my greatest fears, which was the fear that something would be wrong with my child, which would affect his ability to become an independent adult. While this is a very common feeling among many expectant mothers, it bothered me a lot, perhaps more than it would bother others. Even though I was very excited to become a mother and was looking forward to this as a self-fulfilling experience, it took me a long time to overcome my fear. When my son was born, it was the happiest day of my life. He was beautiful, …show more content…

Yet, I was not able to acknowledge it. Something in me was not able to acknowledge my son’s real diagnosis, and perhaps I will never be able to. Later on, around the age of three, my son entered an early intervention program that is also provided by the Regional Center for developmentally delayed children. During that time, I was still in complete denial, hoping that all of this would turn out to be a misdiagnosis. However, my anxiety started to elevate even more when, as part of my drama therapy internship, I started working with mentally delayed adults and realized the struggles of these individuals and their families. When my son reached the age of three, the only diagnosis he had was moderate SPD and a speech delay. He also got an ear tube operation due to constant ear infections that might have caused him some hearing loss. At that time, the regional center dismissed us from services and from being their clients. By that point I realized that I needed to get him the ASD diagnosis from an independent evaluator in order for him to receive the treatment and services that would help him to deal with his challenges. I got another evaluation with a child neurologist through my medical health provider, and the diagnosis was of autism-like symptoms. This was enough for the regional center to re-accept …show more content…

When I received the horrifying message of my son’s abuse, I felt like my entire world had collapsed, like something in me died, and like I was not able to feel happy and satisfied with my life. I felt that this experience had traumatized me as much as my son had been traumatized. Still to this day, I hold a lot of pain and anger towards myself and the school system for exposing my son to an abusive adult. I felt betrayed not only by the teacher’s assistant who was the abuser, but also by the entire school system that covered and protected her instead of protecting my son. I had to immediately stop my drama therapy internship, and I stopped sending my son to school. Instead, I worked with him at home, trying to assist him with recovery. I used mostly drama therapy techniques of visual images and emphasized my own body movements when expressing emotions in order to teach him to recognize his own feelings and later on recognize other’s feelings as well. I also used games that implemented back and forth interaction and eye contact. I also used a structured visual schedule and

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