Picture This: Growing Up with Autism

This last week, when I couldn't sleep, I sorted the boys' school pictures.  I laid them out side-by-side.  I was treated to smiling faces and seeing my sons grow into young men.

Except for when Ryan and Nick were four year old.  In those pictures, Ryan and Nick don't smile.  They look stoic, blank, and empty, as if they were in pain.  I was surprised to see how the autism symptoms manifested themselves.  Although we noticed loss of communication when Ryan and Nick were two years old, they were totally emerged into their individual worlds by the age of four.  They loved being left alone doing their own rituals or form of play.  (There is a slight pause at these photos of Ryan and Nick at age four.)

Then the pictures reveal how the boys slowly emerged, relating to the world around them.  Cameron took the video of the pictures, as evident at the end via his somewhat humorous self-identification.