Hello there. If you have read this for awhile or read the archieves you know I have a Autistic son. He is a beautiful happy healthy 3 year old boy. I love my son. He means the world to me. Since he's been diagnosed as being autistic I have heard a lot of negative statements such as he will probably never show much affection and he wont be able to communicate with you, and we were even told he might not even walk well if at all. you see he was originally considered as severely autistic and in the beggining he didnt do any of those things and if the negative statements were believed he probably still wouldnt. Today my son is very active; runs ( well walks really quickly :-) ) plays, is quite affectionate and even though he still doesnt talk ( a few words) he still manages to get his point across. I still hear that he will never be normal. He was born with missing brain tissue, doesnt hear much at all, and theres something going on with his feet that he is wearing special shoes hoping it will correct itself as he grows; so no he will never be normal, but who is? I personally really hate the word "normal" when it 's applied to people. in my 35 years on this planet I have yet to see a "normal" person. I have seen many many people with similiar behavior traits that could collectively be called "average" but not one single "normal" person. So my son will never be average. My son ,in my opinion, is far beyond average; he is exceptional. I have seen many "average" children get frustrated quite quickly when trying to do something for the first time and scream and cry for mommy and daddy to do it for them; not my son. He tries and tries and he usually succeeds in accomplishing the task at hand. I have seen many "average" children and adults who come up with many reasons why they cant do something. My son who was born with much against him doesn't give up and just sit on the floor and wait for things to be done for him. You might be saying I am biased, well obviously he IS my son. A fact I am quite proud of. I have learned many things about life by watching and interacting with him. Seeing him ,who has many more things to overcome than I, keep trying to learn and accomplish things usually without complaint ( usually he IS only three), and I think about that whenever I try and do something and think about giving up saying its too hard or I can't do it. My son; he's had many challenges put in his life and still he goes about life living, learning, happy and active... average? I dont think so.