I think they could have definitely improved their son's chances of getting ahead of his condition had they not just carefully ignored the child's noticeable lack of communication at a young age.

When we went out to visit, it was to the point where he was playing video games (placed inches away from his face) for hours at a time. When the ipad was removed, he would begin acting out until it was placed in front of him again. He didn't speak to his parents or us at all. STILL it wasn't until after we left that they had him diagnosed officially.



>The problem is that so many parents are in denial when red
>flags are pointed out, and they don't follow through on
>getting a diagnosis or recommended early intervention. So they
>don't really find out that their child is on the spectrum
>until first grade when that teacher is blunt with them. At
>that point therapy can still help, but by then their kids are
>way behind the curve. For my son he was really ahead of his
>peers academically in kindergarten and much of first grade
>because while school was new for most of them, he had been in
>classrooms since he was 18 months old. And is was important
>for him to be used to that routine because we knew he would
>struggle in other areas, and have to be pulled out of some of
>the academic curriculum for his speech and occupational
>therapy.

Thank you for putting this information forward.
>
>We really gotta work on awareness and getting rid of the
>stigma that is there so that when parents hear about "red
>flags" they don't run away from the situation.