I still remember the day I was told Preston has autism.At that time the only thing that I knew about autism was the name.I didn't know what it was,if anything caused it,or what it was going to mean for my son's future. I already had an older child who hit his milestones pretty quickly,except for talking,my oldest son had hearing trouble and needed tubes,then everything was ok and he went to talking and hasn't stoped since.Preston was born a happy and healthy baby,but he was late doing everything,crawling,walking,and talking. I took him to the dr and found out that he had severe ear infections,but he showed no symptoms,never acted like he was in pain. He had tubes put in his ears,and i thought that he would be like my oldest and bounce back and just start talking.It wasn't until I started doing some research on my own that I started wondering if something else could be wrong.I had an appointment for Preston in a week for an evaluation.The day finally arrived for the evaluation and by the end of the day I got what I thought was the worst news in the world,Preston has autism.I still remember that day like it was yesterday,and I still find myself crying sometimes.Preston is now 5 he has been in a special school for children with autism,he has been there for almost three years now and the change in him is almost a miracle. Preston is getting everything he could possibly need.He gets PT,OT,group,sensory all sorts of other things. Preston has come out of his shell. I remember that at age 4 he looked at me and finally said "mom". I cried, I had waited for 4 years to hear that word.Now he is getting ready for public school, things couldn't be better now.

Kylie Gafnea
Northport, AL