And the diagnosis is...

We took Jax to see an pediatric neuropsychologist at the U, yesterday. She was wonderful. After spending several hours with Jax, she confirmed what our Early Intervention program had told us, diagnosing him as being on the autism spectrum (why can I not bring myself to say that he HAS autism or IS autistic?). More specifically, he received a diagnosis of PDD-NOS, which stands for Pervasive Development Delay Not Otherwise Specified. Some people call this mild autism, some people call it pre-autism... and, as with every step we've taken along this journey, with this answer we now have so many more questions.

The doctor we met with said she wanted us to be cautiously optimistic. Jaxon is SO young and seems to be responding really well to what few interventions we've been implementing. These are really good things. At this point, she said, with early help, this could be something that could completely disappear by the time he starts school. Of course, she also said that there are no guarantees and that children diagnosed with PDD-NOS can get better, get worse or stay the same. No one knows what course any individual child will follow.

Where's a magic 8 ball when you need one?

There were a few really wonderful things that happened in the appointment. Jax was pointing, making requests, initiating eye contact and making vocalizations. A few weeks ago, these behaviors were basically non-existant. There were also some difficult things to see. In the course of three hours, Jax only responded to his name once (and I suspect it had more to do with the toy the doctor was holding than the fact that his name had been said). He also didn't reciprocate eye contact or smiles. At the end of the obervation period, the doctor asked D.R. and me to try to elicit a smile or a glance... but to no avail. I can't even begin to describe how disheartening (and, well, painful) it is as a mother to be holding my face mere inches away from my son's and not be able to get him to look at me or smile back at me. It's not as though Jaxon never looks at us..and he smiles all the time... it just has to be on his terms. If I'm holding something he wants or if I'm preparing to tickle him, he'll look right at me and will giggle away. Apparently, given his diagnosis, these are strengths and we'll use them to keep trying to pull him down the road to recovery.

At this point, we are trying everything we can to get Jax started on early intervention therapy. It looks like he'll be starting to attend an autism classroom several mornings each week. I see this as a step in the right direction. In this setting, he'll be working on improving language skills/understanding and developing social skills. What I'd really like is for Jaxon to be receiving one-on-one behavioral therapy and speech therapy. These are things we're pursuing... so I'm hoping we'll find some open doors sometime soon.

In the meantime, I have to get Jax his own backpack!

Thanks to everyone for the continued prayers and support...