Research that Benefits Children and Families

Uplifting Stories

Hello everyone,

My niece and her husband have four children. Their first child was a healthy baby girl. Then about four years later they had a healthy baby boy, so they thought. As time went on my niece started having concerns about how her son acted at age three comparing him to the other small children within our family around the same age. We all just kind of blew it off, but she had that mother instinct to know something was different. Time went on and he started pre-k, and they labeled him with a behavior problem. She even asked his teachers for information on how to have him tested, but they said she just needed to help him have better self-control. As all this was going on my niece was going on the internet putting in the different things her son was doing and re-acting to different situations. What she found was unreal to her, but at the same time made some sense as well. Then by the time he was enrolled in kindergarten she asked if she could speak with someone about her child before he started school. They agreed and this led her to the school social worker. My niece explained her concern and asked if he could be tested for Autism. She told the social worker that the only information she knew about autism was what she had found online and it seem to fit her son. The social worker asked if she had talked with her doctor. My niece said yes, but the doctor at that time said her son needed to be around four or five to be tested, and he was only three. The doctor said they would also need more information from someone like a professional or teacher observation to compare information. The school said they would observe him for the first six to eight weeks and then hold a meeting on what they thought. After all the waiting, observing, and doctor visits, my niece finally had her answer, her son was diagnose with some forms of autism. By this time it was around mid-winter and he had been placed in a different classroom and did an awesome job in school. However through all this my niece, and her husband had another child which was a girl and everything was good. But later they had another boy and he too way diagnose with autism at the age of three because this time the doctor did not wait to test him because of the research my niece had done online.

But the moral of this true story is that through research on the internet my niece found some symptom’s that favored her son temperament and she would not give up on realizing that something was different even though she did not know what. Moreover both boys are doing great thanks to the determination of their mother not giving up, and online research leading her to a real condition with her son’s.