by Catherine M. Harris

Created on: November 28, 2008   Last Updated: December 04, 2008

Every mother wants her child to be perfect. When they are born, you count their fingers and toes, you weigh them and measure them, you check their reflexes, clap near them to see if they react, check to make sure that their eyes follow objects. As they grow you look for developmental milestones like whether they learn to sit up on time, and learn to walk, all very important things. The difficult thing is when they are sort of within range of normal but something tells you that there's something not quite right here. How do you know whether your baby is just a little different or if there really is something wrong? This is the question every parent asks, and thankfully for the majority their concerns are simply a new parent's worry.

So what do you do if you just know that your child does behave in a way that instinctively you feel isn't the way they should be behaving? Looking back I can see that there were problems right from the beginning. My child was loud - very loud. He also had problems sleeping at night, long past the initial 4 months he was still waking up every two hours. Then there were little peculiarities like he didn't like to be held very much; he would stiffen if you did try to cuddle him when he didn't want to be held. Later, he would act like he was deaf, only occasionally answering to his name. He learned to speak around the right time but how he did it was peculiar. He would repeat entire phrases he heard, and he called objects not by their names but by their colour. He didn't like pretend play and would mimic other children's behaviours, long after the initial period where children do do that.

The hardest thing was trying to get doctors to listen to my concerns. It wasn't until things started happening, like the time he was kicked out of preschool gymnastics for not coming when they called his name, that I could even get the doctor to have him assessed in some way. Having family members previously diagnosed with Asperger's meant I was familiar with the syndrome and when the mother of one child told me that I had to insist he be checked, I did that. First I tackled the most simple thing; I asked to get his hearing checked. Or, rather, I tried. After three attempts and him having meltdowns because he didn't like the headphones on his head, the doctor agreed he should be seen by a speech language pathologist.

The speech language pathologist was the key. Following her assessment he required treatment, and she booked an appointment for a multi-disciplinary

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