Interview Transcript

Was posted under Project 1

Interview

Maria Antosenko

1. Have you always been a part of this community or was it a specific event?

2. I only became a part of this community about 8 years ago.

1. How did you become a part of this community?

2. I became a part of the ASD community when I had my son. I didn’t know until he was five years old that he has ASD.

3. What is the most difficult thing about being a part of the autism community?

4. The most difficult thing is trying to get all the information and make connections between my son and other kids.

1. How have you connected with other of the ASD community?

2. I’ve gone to numerous meetings that I found out through FAU Card where I met other parents of children with ASD.

2. I thought he had ASD but the doctors all told me that I was crazy and that he was just delayed because he was a boy.

1. You mentioned that no one believed he had it, what signs did you notice?

2. As a baby, he didn’t respond to his name at the normal rate of other children would and didn’t like to be hugged or touched. He was also very sensitive to the feeling of food on his face. As he got older, his reading and writing skills fell behind and he couldn’t keep up with his classmates.

1. Why did the doctors finally decide to diagnose him?

2. The psychologist decided to give testing ( questionare ) do to comments about certain behaviors. We were originally seeing the psychologist for behaviors that we thought were due to ADHD. This testing happened when he was turning 5 years old.

1. Has him having ASD affected his education?

2. It has definitely affected his education because he has fallen behind in school. He had to retake third grade because of Florida’s FCAT policy that if he didn’t pass the standardized test, then he would have to stay back a year. Even with staying back a year, he still falls behind and it’s a constant fight with the school system to make sure he’s getting the help he needs.

1. What did the doctors tell you when you found out?

2. There was very little information given. The only thing that we were told was that he fell in scores of "highly likely to have autism " and some basic "resources" to where we could get more information. We basically had to figure things out on own with very little direction or help.

1. What are the most prominent signs?

1. The most prominent signs in my son are the behavioral issues and the delayed learning. Throughout the years he’s also has had sensitivity issues with clothing such as shirts and socks. If the size tag hangs in the back, then he can’t wear the shirt and if it’s too rough he won’t wear it either. He used to hit his head when he would get angry too and wouldn’t hug but he seems to have started to grow out of that.

1. Does medication help?

1. Medication does help. My son is on Abilify which helps with regulating moods.

1. Is it easy to find others of this community?

1. It might be easy for some, but I am too busy to put as much time into going to meetings as I should. I am a single mom with a dog that seems to be allergic to everything so I end up having to run between school, the vet and household duties, it’s hard to keep up.

1. How has this affected your family and life?

1. It has a large impact on our family because it’s hard for family members to understand when they don’t have first-hand experience and go to the meetings.

1. What resources have you come across to help your son?

2. FAU CARD provided a good understanding on behavioral issues. They provide information for families & for people with Autism. They provide a lot of seminars on various topics.

1. Are these resources worth it or help as much as they should?

1. What is the best advice you could give a family member of someone with ASD?

2. My best advice would be to get a very good understanding of special education laws.

1. What is your biggest concern for him?

2. My biggest concern is that he won’t be able to graduate high school and fend for himself once he becomes an adult. I think he will always have to live with me and I will always have to support him because I don’t know if he will be able to care for himself. I would love for him to be able to take care of himself but if something was to happen to me then he would have to live with his older brother. And that’s something his older brother knows and unfortunately would have to take on regardless of his younger brothers age.