I am Des' dad.

Desmond came to our home straight from the hospital on his 2nd day of this earth life.  He became a perminent member of our family, through adoption, only seven months later.

Having worked with children with special needs for almost 20 years, I started to notice behaviors when he was about a year old. 

He was so well bonded to my wife, 18 year old daughter, and myself that I moved thoughts of autism to the back of my mind.

When he was 2 years old I told his doctor, he is either deaf or autistic.  She said, "Well, he's not autistic because he is making noises, and look, he looked at me.  Let's have his hearing tested."

Again, we hear what we want to hear.

A few months later I was working with a child who had autism.  I told his mother that I had concerns about my son.  But because he was so affectionate and well bonded, I didn't think he had autism.  The mother turned out to be on the board of directors for the local regional center, and showed me how affectionate her own son is.  She told me to just call the regional center and self refer Des for an autism screening.

I am sorry that everyone does not have experiences equal to the treatment we received from the Valley Mountain Regional center.

The woman who came out  to do the evaluation said at the end, "I hate to be the first to bring this subject up, but your son shows signs of autism." 

VMRC was great.  They got ABA therapists coming to our home right away.  They got us a referral to the MIND institute just a month later.  They have been a wonderful organization to work with.