Alex 2 To 3 Years Old.
Alex knew all of the alphabet while he was still 1 year old.
He is 2 years and 3 months old in this first picture.
Some of his favorite toys was foam and plastic letters and numbers.
While he was still 2 years old...
he would spell out words he had seen briefly on TV or from places we had
previously gone...sometimes weeks afterwards...spelled correctly...
and all from memory.
Alex loved to climb on things.
By two and a half years old...
Alex was spelling out simple sentences on portable electronic devices.
As he couldn't talk until he was three and a half years...
he would spell out what he wanted on these devices...
use preprinted magnetic words...
or use simple sign language.
Alex also loved to line up his letters or words on the floor.
He would often make long strings of words or just random letters on the floor.
It was about this time that he had become very sensitive to auditory stimuli.
He would sometimes squat down, clutch his hands over his ears...
scream and then rock himself to calm down.
He also started avoiding eye contact at about this time.
Most of this behavior started when he was about two and a half years old.
However...
he never really stopped engaging with us during this time.
We always interacted with him for as much as he could tolerate.
Alex has always loved water.
Alex has always loved reading.
He would often spend hours alone with his books.
Alex's mother had always read to him...
all the while cuddling with him...
and having him follow along with his finger as she read to him.
By this method...
Alex could read from a very early age...
although he still couldn't speak.
Alex had decoded the English language by himself.
He learned through exposure to the language as his mother read to him...
and had him follow along with his finger as she spoke the words.
This is why he could type out simple sentences on a portable electronic device
while he was still two years old.
A temporary therapist who worked with Alex downstairs in a front room.
She was only with him for a couple of months.
When Alex was still 2.5 years old...
and we had noticed a marked change in his behavior...
we had taken him in to have him evaluated.
It was determined that Alex had Autism...
and he was given 40 hour a week ABA in home therapy
to start shortly after he was three years old.
There would be a variety of trained professionals going to our house for eight hours a day...
every weekday.
We set up a special classroom upstairs for them to work with Alex.
In the meantime...
there was a therapist who came by for shorter periods
to start Alex on the basics of behavioral modification therapy.
At this time...
Alex had become a slave to a variety of compulsions and rituals...
and he was very inflexible to change.
In the background was Alex's magnetic board where, because he couldn't yet speak...
he made sentences using the preprinted words.
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