AN AUTISM MOM SHARES HER FAMILY’S TRIUMPHANT JOURNEY, FROM HER DAUGHTER’S INITIAL AUTISM DIAGNOSIS TO ATTENDING UNIVERSITY.

By Holly DORFF

Hannah was born in the spring of 1999.

She was seven pounds, four ounces. It was a relatively normal pregnancy, I was 31 years old, and she was a healthy baby girl. I did have difficulty breastfeeding, but overall the thought of autism never entered my mind.

A different diagnosis

It was during one of her check ups when Dr. Fleiss said she should go on a gluten free diet, and that she should get a hearing test. She was only 19 months old.

After two hearing tests in Long Beach, and one at the Children’s Hospital in downtown LA, it was determined Hannah had no hearing loss after all. I was elated.

Well for about three minutes, until the nurse came in and asked me to go upstairs to see the Occupational therapist. After that long and confusing day, Hannah was determined to be autistic.

It was springtime, 2001. I was reeling from calling doctors and specialists and psychologists. Hannah’s father and I were no longer together and I was officially a single mother. The days dragged on with lists of calls to make and specialists to talk to... it seemed endless.

After a while, seeing the amount of scrap paper with phone numbers and advice,I started keeping a notebook of everyone I spoke with, and a daily journal of what Hannah was doing. I was journaling her behaviors to see if I could see any patterns, progress, or worse, regression.