Mom, Why Does My Daughter Have Autism?

What is autism? Where does autism come from? What are the signs of autism? Find out the answers to these and more questions you may have regarding autism.

I still remember the day Alexia was born, so beautiful and perfect weighing in at 8 pounds 7 ounces. She had 10 fingers, 10 toes and sparkling blue eyes that later turned to hazel. Autism was just a word we knew nothing about.

My granddaughter was the most wonderful baby in the world in my eyes and she seemed to be progressing normally for the first few months.
She smiled and interacted with us. She hated to be held when it was time to go to sleep, she much preferred to just be laid down and left alone.

She laughed her first real laugh at about 4 months old. My daughter had said to me "Don't you dare make her laugh for the first time while I'm not here", but of course I had to do it. I was playing with her and she just started to do her little baby laugh.

All seemed to be going well but when she didn't start talking or even trying to talk a few months later, we started to wonder why. I guess we just figured that she was taking everything in and would soon start to babble away but that time just didn't come.

By the time Alexia was 2 years old, we knew that there might be something wrong. Still, we had no knowledge of autism. We may have heard the term autism at some time but we were not aware of what it really meant.

We went along just thinking the time would come when Alexia would just suddenly start talking in a way we could understand. I guess I should clarify that of course her Mommy (my daughter) usually knew what it was she wanted but I was struggling to make sense of anything she would try to say.

Then one day it happened. Elizabeth called me to say "Alexia has autism"! I will never forget that phone call. Liz said to me "Mom, why does my daughter have autism"? All I could say was that it was because she (my daughter, Liz) was one of the lucky ones.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't wish autism or the trials of autism on any child and most certainly not on any mother but I really believe the fact that Alexia was diagnosed with autism forced my daughter to reevaluate her situation. Liz started to learn all she could about what autism really meant and what her options were.

She became one of the most patient mother's I have ever seen becoming very aware of what her daughter might need or want. Liz learned to communicate with Alexia in ways that I would never have been able to.

Liz began to seek help and luckily for us there seemed to be a lot of resources in her area and with the help of some wonderful daycare centers where they are aware of autism and even have staff that is trained to deal with special needs children, Alexia began to develop her speech and communications skills.

Today Alexia is in kindergarten and unless you happen to see her when she is one of her all out tantrums, which seem to be one of the major signs that a child may have autism, you would look at her and think what a wonderful, beautiful child. I sometimes still find it hard to believe that she does have autism because until she is lost in whatever place she goes to in those horrifying and difficult times, she acts like any 6 year old.

Autism affects many of our children and while we still don't know the cause of autism, there are ways that we can help our children and the parents to learn the best ways of dealing with autism.