He had all the hallmark symptoms: He avoided eye contact, he didn’t respond to his own name, he wouldn’t point to communicate what he wanted, he was obsessively interested in letters, numbers and animals. Alex was formally diagnosed with autism when he was 2. When Alex was only 9 months old, his parents arranged for speech therapy, physical therapy and other special education services. Their pediatrician, suspecting autism, recommended early intervention. “His brother would be in belly laughs, and Alex would be just glazed over,” Amy says. (Alex and Amy’s names have been changed to protect their privacy.) She remembers a friend trying in vain to get Alex to laugh - jumping up and down, gesturing wildly, making silly faces. “Alex was an expressionless child,” says his mother, Amy. Even more striking was how much less social he was compared with his brother. He wasn’t learning to sit, crawl or stand as his fraternal twin brother was. ![]() His autism, they suspected, might prevent any such future.Īlex’s parents began to worry about him before he was even 1 year old. ![]() There was a time when Alex’s parents didn’t know if he would ever speak in full sentences, let alone joke around with a stranger. Alex grins - part shy, part sly - as he turns it around to show me the message on the back: “Jets stink.”Įven though he seems to be an entirely ordinary boy, there’s something unusual about Alex: He once had autism, and now he does not. Continuing the tour of his suburban New York bedroom, he points out his Packers-themed alarm clock, his soccer trophy, his Boy Scout trophy and then the big reveal: a homemade foam box in Packers green and gold. Alex, aged 10, bounds onto his bed to pose with his Aaron Rodgers poster, grinning as proudly as if he had recruited the Green Bay Packers’ quarterback himself.
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