The Autism Center at Hospital for Special Care is the first of its kind in Connecticut and only one of 10 in the country. The Autism Center is the nation’s first and only Patient Centered Specialty Practice for autism recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for its responsiveness to patients and medical colleagues, cooperation and integration with other healthcare groups and dedication to continuous improvement.
I began working at a small New England boarding school fresh out of college, but never intended to make a career of teaching. Like most special needs families our first child brought nothing but excitement. Our daughter Casey was the first child and was surrounded by 240 babysitters and role models. Liam came into the […]
Stories of Courage and Inspiration
Tyler’s Journey to Adulthood
Our son Tyler is now 19 years old and has made such progress in his program provided by the New Britain School System called C.L.I.M.B. This program has given Tyler the independence and confidence to work in different environments and learn to socialize with his coworkers and build his social skills needed to become a […]
My nonverbal son
My son Ion is five an he can now count an say his alphabet an quoting scenes from some of his movie’s we are so proud of him
My blessing in blue
He’s my blessing in blue! He’ll be 3 on the 30th of April, 🙂 Autism Awareness Month! He’s my only son of 5 children and he was recently diagnosed with mild autism. He’s still little, but I still had no awareness as he was growing. I just thought that he had an anger problem or that […]
My Ausome life.
When I was 18 years old I gave birth to my daughter Selena. She was an excellent baby – completely healthy. When I turned 19, my son Robert was born. I knew there was something special about him, and he wasn’t acting like a normal child. Both of my children were born when I was living in Puerto Rico, […]
Life with a Child with Autism
My son Alexander is almost 15 years old and was diagnosed with autism when he was around two years old. He did early intervention and went to two different schools for preschool when he was three and four. When he was ready to enter kindergarten, he was not able to join the special education program, […]
Unpredictable
For years, we knew that our son, now 11, was different. Some days he would be happy, and seemingly typically developing. Other days, he would be withdrawn, socially awkward, and raging against the world. After many evaluations and consultations with mental health professionals, we finally arrived at a conclusive diagnosis: autism spectrum disorder. As an […]
As a sister…
Though I am not a parent, I can only speak as a sister. I hope this speaks to siblings and parents alike. As the oldest, my responsibilities may reflect many others: babysitting, running errands, and driving everyone to this event and that event. But I never anticipated the fire I would have in protecting my […]
Rollercoaster of Love
My best friend once told me: “You are only as happy as your unhappiest child.” That statement is so valid, and when one of those children is on the spectrum, that roller-coaster of emotion is extreme and endless. On any given day, within any given hour, our son (and us by proxy) can experience immense […]
Law School Autism Mom: Scene Two-Empathy and the Special Needs Parent
“Humans aren’t as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were ‘reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.” […]