Quinten was born an 8lb happy baby boy. He was the second and last of two children, both boys. During his initial pediatrician appointments, Quinten passed all of his examinations with flying colors. It was not until he was 18 months that my husband and I began to have some concerns about his development. Although Quinten was 18 months, he had not yet started to say, Mama or Dada. If we asked him to repeat it, he could, and if we said, where is Mama, he could point me out. However, Quinten was almost two, and he had never called out for either one of us. We pointed out our concerns to the pediatrician, and he said that it was developmental and that we should give it more time. So, we gave it more time, and it did not get any better, and when we went for his two-year checkup, we really pressed the issue, and the pediatrician finally said that he should be talking more at two years old, and he gave us a referral for a speech evaluation.

I am an educator, and at the time, I had been in the profession for twelve years. During my career, I worked with a diverse population of students and had worked with students who had autism. I also completed checklists for students who were in the process of being identified as autistic. As an educator, I started checking this list off in my head concerning my son. At my son's two-year checkup, I brought up the possibility of autism to my pediatrician. He said he did not think that was the case but did admit that Quinten had a speech development delay, which is why he gave us the referral for a speech evaluation. So, we took Quinten to Early Steps, and they completed his speech evaluation. At the end of the speech evaluation, they gave us the evaluation results and determined that he did qualify for speech therapy. One lady, who had been a part of the evaluation, said, "I don't mean to offend you, but have you ever thought about having him evaluated for autism?" I broke out in laughter and told her that I mentioned it to his pediatrician, and he dismissed it and gave me a referral for a speech evaluation. She said I will write a need for an autism evaluation in my findings, and he will have to provide you with a referral for an autism evaluation. I drove from the speech evaluation directly to the pediatrician to hand-deliver the speech evaluation results. The next step in our journey was to take the referral we finally received from our pediatrician to a neurologist to evaluate Quinten for autism. Quinten was two and a half years old when he was officially diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). He received speech therapy through Early Steps until he was three, which is the age that Early Steps end. He was then placed in Child Find and was able to go to a public school with an autism program every day from 8 am-2 pm.