Autism Milestones Matter Too
Every parent is familiar with the pediatric growth and development milestone chart. It is basically the Bible for new parents. This single chart is what tells parents if their kid is developing on track. But what if you don’t have a typically developing child? What if your child has autism and the sacred milestone chart is irrelevant? Then what? How do you monitor your child’s progress without constantly comparing her to all of her peers, even if it is unintentional?
Autism is such a unique and complex condition, you can’t even compare the abilities of two autistic children who are the same age. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. It doesn’t make sense. The only thing you have to go by is your own kid’s progress. All you can do is make sure that she continues to progress developmentally. Sounds easy, right? It’s not. In fact, I think it’s the hardest part of being an autism parent. Parents of typically developing kids can easily look at the milestone chart and determine, “Ok my kid said his first word at 12 months so he should be combining two or more words by 15 months.”
Autism parents don’t have this luxury.
Autism is defined by atypical development. This can mean a number of things. It can mean that a child makes huge strides in language development and then one day regresses to being virtually nonverbal. It can also mean that these kids don”t meet milestones in the typical order as most kids. This leaves autism parents feeling pretty clueless as to what to expect. Every parent wants to be able to know what to expect next, and about when to expect it. However, once a parent hears those words, “Your child has autism,” everything they thought they knew about parenting becomes a bunch of useless information.
Because kids on the spectrum develop in a very different way than other kids, it usually takes them much longer to reach milestones, particularly in the areas of language/communication and social interaction. For example, Raelyn is 22 months and she still doesn’t wave bye bye. She didn’t say her first true word until about 20 months. She is just now beginning to imitate, and she only responds to her name maybe 25% of the time. So when she DOES meet a milestone, it is always reason for a huge celebration. I literally cried the first time she drank from a straw. I also cried the first time she said, “ma.” In fact, I’m trying to think of a milestone she has met when I haven’t cried!
The first time she ever colored!
These milestones are huge events around our house.
Our family and close friends always join in on the celebration. It never fails that right when I’m feeling on top of the world because of Raelyn’s progress, reality comes crashing into me at full speed. I will be awakened from my dream-like state by the sound of a playmate, 3 months younger than Raelyn, speaking in complete sentences or singing an entire song. With any sort of high, there always comes a low. Well this is the worst kind of low anyone could possibly experience.
Raelyn’s most recent obsession is the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” We read that book at least 20 times a day every single day. Well, one day out of the blue she was flipping through the book and when she got to the page with the purple cat, she blurted out, “YAT!” This was the first time she had ever verbally identified anything. This was HUGE!! We started working on teaching her other animal names from her book, and within a few days she was also saying “bog” (frog), “dog,” and “taco” for teacher haha!! I was so proud, I would take that book everywhere and show anyone who would listen how smart my little girl is.
“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”
This past weekend we went to visit my in-laws in Augusta. They had only seen a video of Raelyn saying “yat” so I was so excited to show them the other animals she had learned. My husband’s whole family was there for dinner, including his brother, his wife, and their 19 month old daughter. I couldn’t wait to show them what Raelyn had learned since the last time they saw her. I ran upstairs and got her favorite book, hardly able to contain my excitement any longer. On my way back downstairs, I hear my niece singing, “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring…”
Suddenly my daughter’s recent victory seemed insignificant in comparison.
I quietly put her book back in my bag, hoping that no one would notice the tears in my eyes. Looking back on this moment, I feel incredibly guilty. I failed my daughter in the worst way possible. I should have shown her how proud I was of her accomplishments. I should have insisted that the entire family watch as she named those 3 animals in her book. Why did I allow myself to feel that her milestones were any less important than my niece’s, just because it took her a lot longer to get there?
The fact that it takes Raelyn so much longer to reach milestones is the very reason that they are so significant. I don’t know what caused my lapse in judgement that caused me to think otherwise. But I have made a promise to myself to NEVER minimize my child’s victories, no matter how small they may seem to other people.
I am going to raise my daughter to be proud of EVERYTHING she accomplishes.
This means sometimes gritting my teeth as I watch her peers meet milestones months before she does. This means showing off her new skills to everyone I know, even if that skill is her simply waving bye bye. Does it hurt to see her fall further behind as she gets older? Absolutely. It is devastating and heart wrenching for a mom to watch her child struggle.
But my pain never dilutes the pride I feel every time she learns something new. This experience taught me an invaluable lesson. I now realize that it is okay to feel both excited for her peers and sad for Raelyn when they hit milestones ages before she does. I’ve also accepted the fact that Raelyn will always have to work harder and longer to achieve things that come naturally to other kids. Being able to accept this has enabled me to feel nothing but pride when showing off her new abilities to people.
It takes countless hours of hard work and encouragement for an autistic child to reach certain milestones. Be patient. Because once they finally get there, you will understand that autism milestones matter too.
Being an autism mom isn’t easy…it takes everything out of you on most days. Click here to read about how I reached my breaking point and how you can avoid it.
