Hi my name is Sylvia. I'm 50 years old and live in Louisiana. My son is 25 with high functioning Aspergers. Sylvester [nickname "Sly"] had no sign of autism until after shots at 18 months. The next day he had a high fever and a seizure. Sly was not the same. He stopped talking, looking me in the eye, and began spinning in circles and banging his head.

By two, I had him in the California special education.  We started to work with him. It was hard work and I had a new baby on the way. My family was not too supportive. They thought that he needed a firm hand or change in my tone of voice. Sly was only responsive to me and some of the connection we had when he was a baby. In school, learning was going well, but social behavior and OCD cause many problems. I stopped working and became Sly's in class aide in third grade. He needed to be kept on task in a regular class. Part of his day he went to special Ed for speech theapy, reading, and math. This worked for Sly all the way through high school.

Along the way, our family when through a storm and we moved to Louisiana to care for my grandfather. In Louisiana, I hit a wall. There was not help for Sly because he was not diagnosed as retarded only "low normal."  The state would not help 1993.  He was placed in a black hole called "special day class." Iwas labeled difficult MOM!. Sly started to regress in behavior and began hurting himself, his brother, and his dog. He was being mistreated at school because I could not come with him anymore.