Stories of Hope

Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies, and Hope That Can Transform a Child's Life
by Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D., Claire LaZebnik

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This is a book about hope. We're optimistic, but not irrationally so. We'd like you to see for yourself how much children with autism can and do improve when a well-thought-out intervention plan is formulated and consistently followed, so Dr. Koegel has included several different families' sagas, starting with where they were when they first sought her help, and ending with where the child is today. We hope these true stories will inspire you. In virtually every one, the child had behaviors or delays that were so overwhelmingly disruptive, the family could hardly cope. And yet, with the right help and interventions, these children have all grown into happy, contributing teenagers and adults.

If you're feeling discouraged, it will do you good to read these stories. They're proof that even the most difficult child will improve under the right circumstances. And we're going to give you the tools to create those right circumstances.

Taking Care of Business and Yourself

When you have a child with a disability, it affects every area of your life. So we've included some chapters that aren't about symptoms and interventions but are more generally about how to deal with various aspects of living with autism - how to process the original diagnosis, how to keep your family life intact, and how to deal with your child's schooling needs. Once again, the one-two punch of both a professional and a mother allows you to see the subject at hand from every angle. Chances are, if you have a child with autism or are working with one, you've had to deal with many of the issues we discuss in these chapters.

Why This Book?

Currently there is an epidemic in the number of children being diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Almost every major periodical has devoted a cover story to the disability. Virtually everyone knows someone who's dealing in some way with the specter of autism.

This book describes specific, concrete interventions, tested in the field and designed to fit into a family's daily interaction, and which, if correctly pursued, will immediately begin improving the symptoms of a child with autism, while at the same time offering the emotional support and understanding a parent needs during what may well be the toughest period of his or her life.

Dr. Koegel has worked extensively with children of all different levels and skills. Claire knows what it's like to be the mother of a kid with special needs. We want our readers to feel both understood and empowered.

You may feel like the work is hard and the road long. It is, but with the help of this book, you're not going to slog through it alone or ignorant.

When your child is first diagnosed with autism, you're about as vulnerable as a person can be. All you want is to make things better for this little person you love. You're terrified that this mysterious disability will ruin your child's life forever, that he'll never know romantic love or what it's like to go to college, or - your worst nightmare - maybe even how to talk. You cast about, praying for someone to come along to make everything okay again.

That's when you have to be most careful.

Sorting Through the Choices

All that vulnerability makes you a nice plump target for anyone who can promise you instant success. But don't buy into that. There are no miracle cures, no overnight successes, in autism - at least not that I've seen, and I've been looking hard. There are, however, good, effective interventions, documented by years of research and rigorous scientific study. Do those.

The very first therapist we saw was a speech pathologist recommended by our pediatrician when our son Andrew was two and a half years old. Andrew was completely nonverbal. I think he may have made a couple of animal sounds, but that was it. At some point after Roberta had been working with Andrew for a while and we had, on her advice, taken him to the Neuropsychiatric Institute of UCLA, where he was officially diagnosed with autism, she sat down with us and said, "I think he'll learn to talk. But it's not going to be an easy or a fast process. Be prepared for a lot of hard work and for it to take a very long time."

Oh, great.

Back in those days, I had a recurring dream where I'd be somewhere with Andrew, and he'd suddenly turn to me and say something - not just a word or two, but a perfect full sentence. And I'd feel this incredible sense of relief, like the world had been put right. Until I woke up again. And then it was awful to lie there and know that it wasn't true, that Andrew still couldn't even say "Mommy."

People were always telling me stories about kids who didn't seem to be able to talk at all but who were just biding their time and, when they did speak, spoke perfectly. I was still nursing a tiny hope that Andrew would be one of the kids who would do that. I had thought that by taking him to see a speech pathologist, I'd be jump-starting the whole language acquisition thing, and within weeks of starting to see her, he'd "get" how to talk. So it was pretty tough to sit there and hear a professional tell us that nothing was going to happen quickly.

I think that if another therapist had miraculously appeared just then and said, "Are you kidding? I can have this kid speaking in full sentences by the end of the month," I would have followed that second person anywhere or paid her anything. Since that didn't happen, though, I stuck with Roberta.

© 2005 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Lynn Kern Koegel is one of the world's foremost experts on the treatment of autism. She and her husband, Robert L. Koegel, Ph.D., founded the renowned Autism Research Center at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Californian, Santa Barbara. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Claire LaZebnik is a published novelist and magazine writer. She lives with her husband and four children in Pacific Palisades, California.