At almost 7 months old, Levi completely stopped everything. Overnight we awoke to a baby we didn’t know. He no longer had a desire to try to roll over, sit up, crawl, babble- nothing. Smiling was non existent as well. I knew it was autism that reared it’s ugly head but Emmalee still smiled at me, she still babbled and tried to move around so when Levi was taken at 17 months old for a formal diagnosis (and out of 12 components, he’d met all 12 being diagnosed with severe ASD with a cognitive age of 0 months) the doctor suggested I bring her in for an evaluation as well.
I thought the doctor was insane. Emmalee was diagnosed just 3 short weeks later. I had no idea. All I knew of autism was what I’d heard about and I didn’t realize there was such as a huge spectrum. Though she smiled and looked me in the eyes, she too was diagnosed with severe autism.
We sold everything we owned, depleted our savings and moved 3 hours away to a city that accepted the twins into an early ABA center. The twins thrived. Now, nearly four years later the twins are 5 1/2 years old.
Levi is completely non verbal an uses an iPad to communicate a few wants/needs and Emmalee is echolalic but spontaneous speech has emerged. She still doesn’t understand simple yes or no questions and can’t tell us how her day was or who her friends are but she’s working hard! Levi can spell his name and is just now beginning to mimic sounds. Though they are 5 1/2 years old they still primarily eat baby food and aren’t 100% potty trained.
Emmalee loves Levi so much. She wakes up early and crawls into his bed to be close to him but Levi doesn’t like t be touched and wails. I’m his mother and even I have a hard time getting him to allow me to hold him. It has to be on his terms only. We’ve separated them into new bedrooms and he is much happier though she misses him.