Autism at-home therapy and early detection research project
October 11, 2009
A tale of two sons
The Mackintoshes were told not to worry about their older boy’s development — until he was diagnosed as autistic. A new research project targeting early detection and at-home therapy has made all the difference to their second child’s progress. Doug Fischer explains.
OTTAWA — When Jennifer Mackintosh looks back at family videos, sometimes her heart breaks.
“At first I see a little boy who was smiling, who was perfectly happy to cuddle up, who was looking right at us,” she says quietly, her hands clasped on the kitchen table.
“Then time goes by and you see that little boy gradually withdrawing into himself, looking more unhappy, sometimes looking a little confused.”
And as she watches those videos, Jennifer says, she finds herself wishing she knew then about her oldest boy what she knows today.
Jennifer and her husband, David, have two young sons, Alex, five, and Nathan, two. Both boys are autistic.
That in itself is not so unusual. When one child is autistic, chances are about one in 20 that a younger sibling will be diagnosed with autism or a related condition, known under the catch-all term autism spectrum disorders. What makes the Mackintoshes somewhat unique is the striking difference in the way their sons have responded to therapy — in large part, they believe, because Nathan was so much younger when they realized he was autistic.
“We caught Nathan before he could start that retreat into himself,” Jennifer says. “I’m convinced it made a big difference.”
Despite their suspicions that there was something wrong with Alex when he wasn’t talking at one and was only babbling at 18 months, doctors told the Mackintoshes he would outgrow the problem. It wasn’t until Alex was two-and-a-half that they got a diagnosis of autism. And even then there was nowhere for them to turn for help.
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