LIFE ON THE SPECTRUM

1 in 70 THE PROPORTION OF PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA WHO ARE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM

“WOULD YOU BE UPSET if we told you that your son was autistic?” the child psychologist asked me. I looked through the glass into the next room, where my sweet-faced eight-year-old was examining some puzzles, while I was trying to solve one of my own. I was emphatic. “Not at all,” I replied.

“J” had always been a bit of an enigma to us. An unusually quiet and laid-back baby, he was a late walker and an early talker with an often-hilarious propensity to co-opt adult speech. At three, he started preschool and amazed his teachers by reading storybooks from start to finish. News spread that he had mastered reading, and the ambitious mum of one of his classmates approached us to ask, “What method did you use?” We had to admit that we didn’t have one.

As J grew older, he began to struggle socially. The party invites and play dates dried up, and sending him