Brittanie Goustin
Dr. Shattuck
English 101
October 15, 2009

Autism plays a very important role in my life. I deal with it twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year. My youngest brother Jay was diagnosed with autism when he was three and a half years old, he is now seven and doing great. He was diagnosed as high functioning and has never been one that didn’t talk or had to learn how to talk. There are many different form of autism and he is one of the lucky ones to not have lost his ability to do everything.
My parents thought that maybe he was delayed in everything like normal infants and toddlers are. My other younger brother Jake who is fourteen did everything later than normal and today he is fine so my parents thought that maybe Jay was taking after Jake. My mom started reading books and checking out websites in delays in infants and toddlers and came across a website that talked about aspergers and autism syndrome and started reading the symptoms. A lot of what my brother was doing or not doing at the time was on that list.
My parents talked with our pediatrician and he suggested that we take Jay to a speech therapist and a neurologist. They started seeing a speech therapist and had to wait a month to see the neurologist. The speech therapist suspected he had autism and when my parents finally got him into see the neurologist his diagnosis was mild, high functioning autism.
Autism is a disorder that impairs a childs development in the areas of communication and social skills. There are many symptoms of autism but not all children have the same symptoms. My brother did not have the social skills or language abilities that children would normally have at three and a half years old. He could talk but not in full sentences. He also could not carry on a full conversation that was suitable at that age with other children of the same age. He avoided eye contact with you and preferred to be by himself. He had difficulty expressing what he wanted and repeated words and phrases that other people said to him. He does have routines that he goes by at school and if they are messed up then it messes him up or in this case makes him not want to go back to school. When he has a temper tantrum he sometimes will hit himself on the leg or hits whatever is close to him.
Dealing with my brother on a day to day basis is easy at times and difficult at others. For instance he does not like it when you tell him no, or just the word no period. My friend Jenna came over one time and she was sitting at the kitchen table and she told my brother not to do something and when he heard the word no he just blew up. He got right in her face nose to nose and screamed as loud as he could. His face turned bright red and my mom had to come and talk to him and clam him down. If you don’t want him to do something you have to find a way to tell him no without actually saying the word no. On the other hand my brother is one of the most lovable kids. He loves to give you hugs and tells you that he loves you all the time. He has temper tantrums and outbursts like any normal kid would except for the fact that you never really know what he might be upset about. It could be that he lost a toy, or that someone touched him, or something that you can’t ever begin to figure out. It took my parents a long time to figure out what upsets him when he has a really bad outburst but now they have it down and know what’s coming. Whenever my brother starts to act out of the ordinary or starts getting grouchy, or if he doesn’t want to do anything at all it usually means he is getting sick. Nine times out of ten this is the case.