Autism Diagnosis Day: The Story of My Son's Diagnosis [Autism Journey Series - Ep. 1]

Andrea Libutti, MD

• Autism Diagnosis Day: How I went from devastated to grateful for my son’s autism diagnosis. • It was one of the worst days of my life. February 12, 2006. It is etched into my brain. Forever. Though now I see it as one of the best.I was sitting on my living room floor reading a report. A county pediatric psychologist came over three hours earlier to evaluate my 20-month-old son.She followed him around for these three hours and tried many tactics to engage him in activities that he had absolutely no interest in.What I was reading was her assessment. The front page had a scale with the numbers 0-20, 20-40, and 40+ as a measurement for what defined a child as mild, moderate or severe on the autism spectrum.I started the day optimistic. I was finally going to get some answers as to what was going on with my toddler. He went from an engaging infant to a boy far removed from his parents and surroundings, at least from a “normal” perspective. He loved to spin the dog bowl around and around, over and over, all day long.I’m not sure why I was so optimistic. It was obvious something was wrong. Where he was once happy and bubbly and chatty, he now looked drawn and sickly, and he never looked at us, only through us.So there I sat staring at her report through tears, and an intense feeling of wanting to vomit. If you liked this short audio, you can get the whole article at: https://www.andrealibutti.com/2018/11/04/autism-diagnosis-day-how-i-went-from-devastated-to-grateful-for-my-sons-autism-diagnosis/?utm_source=anchor&utm_medium=description-blog Download the first chapter of my book “Awakened by Autism” for FREE: www.andrealibutti.com/?utm_source=anchor&utm_medium=description-chapter My name is Andrea Libutti and I’m a doctor, author and mother of a brilliant son, who at the age of 2 was diagnosed with severe autism.