My son had autism. Then he didn't.

I'm trying to hold him, but he's squirming. The airport lounge is packed with people, and I can feel all eyes on me: the dad who cannot appease his toddler. Brandy sees me struggling, and comes up with a quick fix. She flips over the stroller. She places Jackson next to it. He begins to spin one of the wheels with his hand. He keeps spinning it. Over and over and over. He's completely absorbed. I look at Brandy quizzically. She shrugs.

That snapshot of my oldest son Jackson appeared in a feature story I wrote for Babytalk roughly two years ago: “Solving the Autism Mystery.” (There may be no other story I’m more proud of. You can read it here.)

Jackson was 3 years old at the time, and by all accounts—from mother’s intuition to the experts’ definition—he was on the spectrum. The behavioral psychologists saw what we saw, but were hesistant to make an official diagnosis. The brain is still developing. So much can change in six months. So time passed. 4Ts became 5Ts. Birthday candles were lit, blown out, and saved in the kitchen drawer. By age 6, the appointments with the behavioral psychologist were over. The books came off the nightstand. The tears were redirected to other things like sad movies and kindergarten graduations.

That’s the thing with autism: There is no pathology. It’s not in the blood. It doesn’t appear when you shine a penlight into the pupil. Injuries don’t cause it. Biopsies don’t detect it. Medicine can’t fix it. It’s behavior—averted gaze, preoccupation with patterns and repetition, hyper-sensitivity to certain sounds and textures, etc.—that earns the diagnosis.

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