One of the most common questions I get asked is, “How did you know Dylan was autistic?” To that, my answer is always, I actually had no clue! I’ve always considered ourselves very blessed to have gotten a diagnosis at a young age. Especially because of the way it all played out!

Dylan started receiving services through the county Birth to 3 Program when he was about a year old. I was struggling to get him transitioned over to jar foods. He wouldn’t eat much and the food had to be completely smooth or he would gag and throw up.

The amazing people in Birth to 3 worked with him for several months and once we got his eating on track, they left. When Dylan was about two years old, I called them back in to help him with his talking. He wasn’t picking up many words and when he did, he would only say it for a week or two and then stop. By this time, it was obvious to the professionals that he was behind in other areas too. This wasn’t a surprise to me. It seemed like from the day he was born, he always hit his milestones a few months later than what was normal.

We started working on not only his speech, but also pointing to objects or pictures in a book and other related things. It’s been so long now that I’d have to check his records to see exactly what we all started with. The Birth to 3 professionals continued to work with him through the next year. One thing after the next, Dylan was always just a little behind, so we continued to work with him.

During this time, Dylan developed an interest in letters and numbers, specifically letters. He had a toy that sang the ABC’s and he would listen to it nonstop. He also had a puzzle of his name that he would do over and over for hours.

I was in shock when an episode of Super Why was on TV and he started saying the letters on the screen. He was obsessed with the show and couldn’t talk yet but it was obvious that he knew his letters. By the time he did start talking, he already knew all of his letters and the sounds they made even though no one had ever really worked on it with him. He picked it up all on his own. He was recognizing a few words as well.

When it came time for Dylan to age out of the Birth to 3 program, the head of his team presented me with a packet of papers that talked about Hyperlexia. She just happened to have been at a seminar at a local autism center. The topic was hyperlexia, which is generally classified as being an early interest/obsession with letters and numbers and early reading. It used to only be associated with autism, but they were finding that there were cases of kids with hyperlexia who displayed autistic traits but weren’t on the spectrum.

I looked over these papers and it screamed Dylan. It was him to a T. I got a hold of the center right away so I could have him evaluated. There is no formal hyperlexia diagnosis, so in order to get the evaluation done, it needed to be a part of an autism evaluation.

I went ahead with the evaluation with no doubt in my mind that they would come up with a hyperlexia diagnosis. His therapists felt the same way too! Even though he was always a little behind and he had his little quirks, none of us suspected that he was autistic.

When the formal diagnosis finally came, I was not surprised he had hyperlexia but I was in absolute shock and disbelief that he was also on the autism spectrum. I had no clue…not one suspicion that he was autistic, so this diagnosis left me completely blindsided.

I remember asking the lady, “What do I do now?” She referred me to the Treffert Center and told me to start there. I really didn’t know much about autism and I was feeling so lost at that time. Feeling like a fish out of water, but I called the Treffert Center to start getting him the services he would need and I started educating myself.

The more I learned about the autism spectrum, the more Dylan’s quirks made sense to me. The arms that constantly flailed and pounded, the silly squinty eyed faces he would make, the severe car sickness he had and the puzzle that he would do nonstop for hours. One by one, little things started adding up and I could suddenly see what was there all along. I just never knew it because I knew nothing about the spectrum.

Once I educated myself about the autism spectrum and I learned how beneficial an early diagnosis and early intervention can be, I can’t help but feel extremely blessed by how everything worked out. If he hadn’t shown such clear signs of hyperlexia or if his therapist had never gone to that seminar, who knows how long it would have taken before I suspected something and acted on it. What would our life be like now if I hadn’t gotten him the therapy that has been absolutely life changing for him?

Dylan’s diagnosis was a complete shock that was stumbled upon due to a chain of events that could never have been predicted. Some people would say it’s a coincidence. Some people would say it’s fate. I know in my heart that the powers that be have a plan for us and what lead us to our unsuspected diagnosis is just the beginning!