My son Raven was born in June of 1999 and at first he seemed to be developing at a perfectly normal pace. There were NO signs whatsoever. At almost 2 he was walking, speaking several words and just beginning to potty train. At this point he began to regress quickly. He was losing words and wanted nothing to do with potty training. His mother and I were not together anymore and my current girlfriend started voicing her opinion. At age 3 everyday I would get my Son off the bus and finally one day I confronted his Mother with our suspicions. She was in serious denial. It took some time but he was finally diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at almost 5. He now lives in a residential program. I opened RMK Painting Services in hopes of providing a future income for him. I now will be working to open A 4 Autism Painting Company to try and help the public get educated about Autism and raise money for research of Autism causes. I believe that early intervention is very important and I do hope that people can all work together to find a way to stop Autism from becoming even more of an epidemic that it is.

Mike Kieft
Grafton, MA