Finding Our Place-- Successes and Setbacks in the School System. Chapter 6-- "Finding the Right Resources Early." I'm Vivian. I'm 52. I live with my husband and my daughters in New York state. My daughter, Talia, was diagnosed at age 6 and is now 17. She has an older sister who is 20.

When she was born, there were no problems with the birth. Everything was fine. But having an older child and a younger child gives you the ability to have a little bit of contrast, and that was intriguing for me. My oldest daughter was a chatterbox, but Talia didn't talk quite as much. She was always observant and would sit and stand in one place, taking everything in. A lot of people thought she was shy, but I knew she was just doing a lot of observing and absorbing of what was going on around her.

As time went on, she did end up talking more, but there were a lot of speech delays. She had articulation problems to the point that you could barely understand her. Often, her older sister would talk for her and sometimes translate what she was saying, as she often understood more than the rest of us.

When she got to school, she started speech therapy three times a week and that really helped. She did really well. I'm a teacher. My husband's a teacher. While we were working, our kids were in daycare. And we were extremely lucky. We found a daycare provider who had a master's degree in early childhood education.

She was very aware of developmental milestones, behaviors, and things like that. She too began to notice different behaviors at the daycare when she was interacting with other kids. Talia wasn't really respecting physical boundaries very much. She was being a little intrusive. As a result, the daycare provider recommended that we get Talia evaluated, so we sent her to the same psychiatric nurse practitioner whom she had sent her son to. At that point, Talia was diagnosed with OCD.

The diagnosis made a lot of sense. She had always liked for things to be in a certain place at a certain time when she was little. For instance, in the mornings, I would leave for work and every morning she wanted to be up at a specific time to wave goodbye to me. She had a very set routine, needing to watch the same set of TV shows at the same time every day.

That wasn't the end of the story, though, because that same nurse practitioner we saw referred us to a therapist that we started meeting with. After the first couple of months, he sat us down and said, we need to tweak her diagnosis. It's not exactly OCD. She's got Asperger's. I was a little shocked at first. I wasn't expecting him to say that. All of this happened in kindergarten.

As far as school went, she managed OK. Not absolutely stellar, but OK. When she was in first grade, I sat down with her teacher because she was struggling to keep up. And from that point on, she started giving her a little extra assistance, and that seemed to help. It wasn't full registered services or anything like that. But gradewise, she started improving.

Socially, in school, she was actually doing pretty well too, which is unusual for someone with Asperger's. She had friends. She had playdates. She got invited to birthday parties. She would have kids over to the house. I think at that age, the other kids really didn't notice her behavior so much. She was also incredibly verbal and incredibly high functioning, so it wasn't really noticeable for a long time.

When she got to fourth grade, the work started getting harder and I decided that it would be good to have her evaluated for a 504 accommodation so that way she would get extra time on tests and test modifications. By fifth grade, it had gotten so much harder than fourth grade. She was having a really hard time keeping up. So that year, I requested a full evaluation. As a result, she got classified, so that was really good.

Middle school was a really tough time. She had a resource room and some extra help, but the classes were co-taught and that was a nightmare format for her. Six weeks into middle school, I got a call from the vice principal asking if they could start doing some observations because her behavior in the classroom was really sticking out and she was being disruptive.

So they did the observations, and then we sat down to talk about it. And they completely rerouted her program after that. It was clear that she needed more help, and the school district that we live in just happened to have a program specifically for kids on the spectrum. We were really fortunate.

In the fall of sixth grade, she joined a program called IMPACT. She started getting changed out of the co-taught classes and was put in what they called the IMPACT room. The room itself was great. They had beanbag chairs, sensory areas, and places where she could really relax. In the program, there were other autistic kids that were taught a mainstream curriculum by a special education teacher in a much smaller setting.

She was much more successful in being in that environment. By the following year, she started going out for two of her core classes. And gradually by gradually, they started working her back into the mainstream classroom. Fast forward to now and she's actually a senior. IMPACT has followed her all the way through high school and continues to be a blessing.

She's mainstream for all of her classes; some are co-taught, some aren't. She goes to the IMPACT room for community skills and a resource room. It's a really good home base for her. For example, she doesn't like eating in the cafeteria, as it's way too loud, so she eats her lunch in the IMPACT room.

They do a lot of activities now that she's in high school. Some of them are even outside of school. One time, they took a trip to the mall and did some shopping. They've gone hiking a few times and gone to local parks. It's been a true godsend. We really lucked out that we were in a school district that has this type of program. It's allowed her to become very successful in school while also working and improving life skills.

Her grades are excellent. She works really hard, and we actually just got an application for her to be in the National Honor Society because her grades have been so high.

"Advice for Other Parents." My advice for other parents would be that you have to advocate for your child without allowing too many emotions to get in the way. I've been a special education teacher before I even had kids, and I have seen a lot of parents get caught up in the blame game. They blame vaccinations. They blame doctors. They blame the school system. They tend to become martyrs for their kids, and their kid's disability becomes their full-time job because they are so focused on who to blame.

I would say that you need to accept your kids for who they are. I think parents need to accept the situation for what it is and not try to put a lot of energy in trying to change your kid's diagnosis or push too hard on the schools. It's all about finding the delicate balance of making sure your kid gets what they need while also allowing the schools and the professionals to do their job.

Accept that your kid is going to get there, but they're going to get there at a different rate. They're going to get there more slowly and in their own time at their own pace. When we first got our diagnosis that day in the therapist's office, I was a little shocked at first. But just a minute later, I jumped into proactive mode. My first question was, how do I help her?

I didn't care how she got the autism. I didn't care what was the cause or anything. I just wanted to get her the help that she needs to thrive, and I think that's why she's been so successful. I've told my daughter many times that she's not broken and she doesn't need to be fixed. If there was a magic pill out there that got rid of autism, I wouldn't give it to her, because her autism makes her who she is.

She's warm and kind. She's funny. She sees things in a completely different way. She has a different perspective on things. She's just a great person, and I am so proud of her.