I never had it easy with my first child. I didn’t know if it had to do with me having no experience as a mother, or with my child just being difficult. I remember feeling sad when my friend would tell me how their child is able to do this and that — because at that time, my child could not even say “mama” or “papa”, or even look at us in the eye. When his preschool teacher pointed out that he was very different, it prompted us that something may be wrong.
We called KK Hospital to make an appointment with the Developmental Pediatrician. Unfortunately, on that same appointment, the doctor confirmed that he has autism, while pointing out the obvious symptoms: he had no eye contact, no social skills and no meaningful words out of his mouth. He talked, yes, but it was not to communicate, it was only to echo the words that he had heard. We were crushed with this discovery – he was our only child then, it did not help that the doctor had little bedside manners to help us cope emotionally.
We were depressed but we also knew that we cannot be like this forever. The sooner we found the right therapies and interventions, the better the outcome that our son will have. After a month of not doing anything, we went full speed to research on the available intervention centres in Singapore. When we found a suitable intervention centre, we decided to enroll him there. We also decided for him to continue with his mainstream kindergarten to help address his academic and social skills. On top of these, we also found a private speech therapist to help him with his language delays, as well as a social skills teacher to help him become aware of the people around him.
I learned how to work with his interests so that I can teach him other skills. He was very interested (more like obsessed) with the alphabet, so I used the letters of the alphabet in order to teach him how to cut, color and write. Even though our life was centred on nothing but letters, it was ok – at least he was learning what he needed to.
It also helped that we came across Espesyal Pinoy, a support group for special needs parents. We found kindred spirits in one another, and most importantly, other people who truly understood us and listened to us, without judgement or pity.
In preschool, we never thought that our son would be able to cope with academic work. But to our surprise, he excelled in spelling and art. His obsession with letters became an advantage as he was getting all perfect scores in his spelling tests.
When it was time for him to go to primary school, we had him assessed by a psychologist to see his “school readiness”. When we got the results, we decided to send him to a mainstream primary school. We were open-minded that he might need to transfer to a special-needs school, but we just decided to take a leap of faith.
My son is now if primary 4. He still goes to the same mainstream school. He also goes to a social thinking therapy centre to help him develop his social skills. He’s had his shares of bullies, but his teachers know of his condition, so we hope that they are doing the best they can to help him.
We still take it one day a time. This may be a different mindset as compared to other parents, but then, our child is different. And for that, we just have to move along with him.