A new report today claims that Autism begins the womb. It claims that patchy changes in the brain, long before birth may cause symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The new study carried out by The New England Journal of Medicine raises hope that better understanding of the brain may improve the lives of children with Autism.

This is good news for parents as ASD is still a relatively unknown entity. With no known cure there is a growing amount of research but there is still little evidence to support some of the claims made by the reports. Among these claims was one recently that autism can be detected as young as 6 months.

As a father of a 6 year old boy with Autism, I am by no means an expert in the condition.

James was diagnosed a couple of years ago officially but we suspected for some time that he was different. We knew he was different to our daughter Jessica, who is a year older than him but passed that off as boys are lazy or just told ourselves that all children are different and all develop at different speeds.

On Jessica’s first birthday, she could practically hold a conversation with you. On James’ first birthday he could practically sit up- sometimes. We noticed that he would form odd habits like picking up a ball and crawling to the edge of the rug to drop the ball onto the hard floor, then retrieve it and do the same thing again and again. He seemed reluctant to make eye contact sometimes, which we read was a sign of autism, but then at other times he would make inappropriately direct eye contact- sometimes physically grabbing your face to force eye contact. Despite noticing his unusual habits he was such a pleasant baby that we thought he was just laid back.

Because Jessica was so forward as a baby, she was quite a handful, always exploring everything and needing a lot of supervision. He would happily sit for long periods of time occupying himself with a shiny object spinning on his baby walker.

As he got older he began to display aggression and angry behaviour when he got frustrated and could explode apparently without warning in seconds. Eventually, we mentioned our concerns to our GP who reassured us that all kids develop differently and there is a reason they call that age the terrible two’s. He did though refer us to specialists who duly diagnosed his condition just before his 4^th birthday.

I remember when my wife was pregnant with Jessica, I asked her if she had to choose between beauty and brains for our unborn child, which would she choose? She chose looks and I said brains were more important, (we agreed of course, like all expectant parents would, that our children would be beautiful and intelligent).

With this perhaps in mind I was reluctant to admit that James was different. I dreaded him being labelled as disabled or Autistic James. To me he was just a perfect little boy that was slightly different.

We attended a parent workshop, where no children were present- just parents talking about their experiences. What we discovered there was that we are quite lucky and that James’ symptoms seem to be quite mild compared to some. It also emerged that my feelings of denial were not unusual. There seemed to be a pattern of particularly Dads, that didn’t want to accept that their child might be different. I don’t know if there is any scientific facts to support that claim, but from the people in that room it was the majority. The other thing that struck me was that most of the children being discussed were boys.

One lady who turned up late and alone came in all flustered and told us that her husband would have loved to have joined us but he was away working in China on important business. I saw little need to share that information with us initially, but later during discussion she revealed that her and her hard working husband had noticed that she didn’t really engage with other children and seemed to have little imagination when it came to playing. They also notice she was a little clumsy or awkward. To cure this they had enrolled her in dance class. When this failed to fix her they took her to a doctor. She was 12. I may be wrong and it may just have been my perception but I suspect they were so busy keeping up with the Jones’ that they couldn’t possibly comprehend the chance that maybe there was actually something wrong with their daughter.

To the shame of this country there is still clearly some sort of stigma attached to disability and individuality, particularly if the illness is of the mental nature. All parents surely consider their children to be beautiful, special intelligent beings and parents of autistic children are no different.

As our suspicions of his autism, pre diagnosis grew, we of course read books and articles online on the subject.

As anyone who has googled any ailment will know, the symptoms and results of those symptoms are terrifying. I once self-diagnosed and convinced myself I had a twisted testicle and therefore had only a matter of hours to get to the hospital or lose it, after reading an internet article. After a high speed trip to out of hours’ emergency clinic, I was told I had a water infection.

So, I was reluctant to accept the information available on the internet but there seemed to be so many conflicting reports that it was impossible to be sure either way. I found a chart that said if your child has two out of the five behaviours in table one, and three out five in table two, and three out of six in table six then your child is autistic. The stereotypical autistic symptoms did not fit James. He displayed hardly any of the behaviours in table one and two but arguably displayed most of the behaviours in table three. 

One of the well known facts about autism is that sufferers are detached and don’t like to be touched and call feel emotions.

None of these things are true of James. Admittedly, when the family dog died recently, although he noticed we were all visibly upset he patted his mum on the shoulder loving and said “oh dear, can I play on the Wii now mummy”.

He didn’t seem to comprehend the fact that the dog was dead and when we said “Tilly is in heaven” he seemed to think this was another country.

When I had my motorbike stolen and set fire to and was understandably annoyed by this, James talked about it endlessly, saying things like “you haven’t got a motorbike now Daddy because naughty boys stole it and set it on fire didn’t they”. He doesn’t understand tact, but then neither do many people who don’t have autism. He does though love his family very much and delights in telling us all the time. He shows his love more than anyone else in the house and cuddles and kisses us constantly. He still throws himself on the floor occasionally, if we take a different route home from school and sometimes he won’t eat anything but pizza but his odd habits are less odd to us now.

He is unable to do some things that other children his age take for granted, such as colouring or drawing but he is able to do many things that none of the other children in his class can do. His reading is more than a year advanced for his age but he has needed help to simply hold a pen or to feed himself with a knife and fork.

He is able to memorise patterns and routines remarkably well and loves game shows, often watching the same episode again and again, rewinding it when the audience laugh for an action replay like a football fan might when there is a moment of brilliance. When he watches shows such as the cube he is able to reel off statistics like Mo farrar played this in game 3, he lost two lives..

I have spent hours trying to get him to hold a pen, trying time again to get him to form a recognisable circle, to no avail.

Tonight when his sister was writing on a card for her Grandma, James picked up the pen and wrote JAMES in perfectly legible writing. By the time he got to S he was almost wetting himself with excitement because he knew it was a big deal. I have no idea how he learned to do it, or if he will be able to do it tomorrow. He says he going to.

At bed time he insisted on wearing Jessica’s pink One Direction pyjamas, untroubled by ego and blissfully unaware why he looked funny, yet knowing and delighting in the fact that he did.

He surprises me every day with his loving faithful way, and amazes me with his manipulation skills saying things like “ you’re going to watch me play on the Wii tonight Daddy aren’t you because you’re my best friend and I love you so, so much”. How can I possibly say no?

A good friend of mine said recently that I cling to James as much as James clings to me. This is possibly true and I wonder if this is common in other parents of autistic children.

I’m certain that they like me, believe their child is a beautiful, clever, loving treasure.

If I was to give any advice to parents who suspect their child has autism it would be to get a diagnosis as quickly as possible, rather than being in denial or hoping it passes. Our NHS system does have some wonderful mechanisms in place and the help and support by highly skilled professionals is invaluable. There is additional help and funding available in good schools and children can flourish and develop much quicker and much easier with that help and live a fuller and richer life.

Don’t let your pride get in the way of your child’s well-being!