We or should I say I thought something was not right with our son Adam at two years old. Why wasn't he learning to speak? Why was he loosing the words that he had learned? Why was he playing with his toys in such odd ways? He never looks upset and just stares at you. Quiet and to himself like nobody else is in the room. He has been a good baby and seemed to smile all the time. Where did his smile go? Actually I was asking these things at 12-18 months of age and beyond. I took him to have his hearing tested for free by school district and found out there was something not right. Adam played with the comb like a car instead of saying what it was. When the headphones were put on him he had no real reaction to the sounds they were putting out for each ear at the frequency they set them on. Ok so now we go on for further testing. Cool I want to have some answers here. My husband and I had been teaching a Sunday School class with an autistic girl named Taylor in it and we thought to ourselves a number of times. "Adam does that!" A light bulb momment don't you know. The kids doctor brushed off my concerns and said he is just delayed a little bit don't worry about it. Well good thing I did worry about it. We Adam and I (hubby was out of town with work) to the next testing. Lo and behold he had NINE OF THE ELEVEN signs of AUSTISM. Adam was now almost 2 and a half. He was diganosed PDD NOS. Adam started PPCD and attended that for three years. WE held him back from kindergarten for another year in PPCD he was not emotionally ready for kindergarten at 5 yrs old. He was just getting toliet trained by then and finally called me Mommy instead of Amie Amie. The only name he heard at home when it had to do with a girl. My daughter name was and still is Amie. PPCD got Adam on the right track to succeed in school. He has special classes in additon to his main stream classes and speech classes. He was put in a special program in middle school and then fully main streamed by the eighth grade. High school more special classes to start and extras like a tape recorder to tape what teacher said ( Adam could not write in cursive or if he printed could he keep up* fine motor skill problems.) Adam didn't have any school friends though the teachers tried. Adam also had a laptop computer in the last two years of high school to help him with note taking. Adam is a master at using the computer. He was fixing the PPCD printer in class at age 3! Adam went to transition learning center after high school and learned skills like how to fill out a resume and go on a job interview and use the bus and train system * since he doesn't drive. Thru the transition learning center he started to volunteering for the school district's Technolgy Center and still does two times a week to this day. He also is in and awesome non profit program call non Pariel Insitute where he is learning how to make video games with other austitic young adults. Soon Adam will have enough training to train other and work on a production crew to produce games they sell to public. I am so proud of Adam he has come a long way from the days he didn't know my name or could speak to us. Adam is verbal and considered to be high functioning as the labels go. He is still austic though don't let his normal apperance fool you. It does normal people and they say I don't see any problem with Adam except he is too quiet. They don't live with him. Adam does go out except to school or to volunteer at Tech Center, He plays video games or work on his school stuff here at home with the aid of a hyped up computer DARS provided for him to work at home when he wishes. Adam laughs now and seems to enjoy his life just in a different way and that is ok because we are all unique like GOD iNTENTED US TO BE.