It's been ten years

October 8, 2014. That was the day of Max’s first evaluation at Metropolitan University Evaluation Center. We had four appointments, parents’ interview, two sessions with Max, and a final discussion, when the results were presented to us.

Now that the leaves on the trees are turning yellow again, my mind turns back to these days. I want to see how things changed in ten years.

Max changed from a skinny, delicate boy who spoke in questions only and referred to himself in second person, to an intelligent, often articulate teenager. I changed, from a petrified, trembling mom to a much more confident person who can find humor in the condition that used to be so scary. And the world changed, too.

There is more autism in the population, there are more services available, there is less stigma.

There is a new ABA provider office on Main Street of our town. While traveling here on the East coast I saw similar new businesses in other towns. Here and there, I see traffic signs “Child with autism zone”, also a novelty.

How to characterize these changes? I’m an artist, and I think in colors. Consider this question: what color is autism? Ten years ago, it was dark gray. Gray was the color of the walls in the office of the local ABA provider where I took Max for a social skills class. The toys there were all second hand. They were not dirty or broken, they were just worn and, compared to the bright and shiny toys in Gymboree, with its bright sunny walls, they looked sad. The special education classroom in Max's elementary school had no windows, but the mainstream classroom had huge windows which provided amazing light.

All of this made me see the world of autism as the world of gray color.

Now, to me, the color of autism diagnosis is yellow. 

Each color has meaning. Yellow has a “warning” connotation. It’s right there between red and green on the traffic light. It tells you that you cannot just drive ahead safely, you have to be on guard. It’s bright, it keeps you on alert and calls to action. You have to do something, make a change. But the color yellow is anything but grim. It is bright in more than one sense. It also has playfulness to it. It definitely belongs to the color pattern of a schoolroom. It is an invitation to play, to creativity.

From dark gray to bright yellow in ten years -- that's quite a journey.