![]() ![]() Owen is already on the bed, oblivious to our arrival, murmuring gibberish. So we join him upstairs, all of us, on a cold and rainy Saturday afternoon in November 1994. But if it does all that for him, there’s no reason to stop it. We were never big fans of plopping our kids in front of Disney videos, but now the question seemed more urgent: Is this good for him? They shrug. We ask our growing team of developmental specialists, doctors and therapists about it. Then Walt slips out to play with friends, and Owen keeps watching. Owen at 18 months, before signs of autism. Families stop watching those early videos, their child waving to the camera. Unlike the kids born with it, this group seems typical until somewhere between 18 and 36 months - then they vanish. “You don’t grow backward.” Had he been injured somehow when he was out of our sight, banged his head, swallowed something poisonous? It was like searching for clues to a kidnapping.Īfter visits to several doctors, we first heard the word “autism.” Later, it would be fine-tuned to “regressive autism,” now affecting roughly a third of children with the disorder. “It doesn’t make sense,” I’d say at night. He wove about like someone walking with his eyes shut. He could barely use a sippy cup, though he’d long ago graduated to a big-boy cup. My wife, Cornelia, a former journalist, was home with him - a new story every day, a new horror. ![]() I had just started a job as The Wall Street Journal’s national affairs reporter. Just shy of his 3rd birthday, an engaged, chatty child, full of typical speech - “I love you,” “Where are my Ninja Turtles?” “Let’s get ice cream!” - fell silent. ![]() In our first year in Washington, our son disappeared. ![]()
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