The Second Diagnosis.

It is a well-known fact the majority of children with Autism have a secondary diagnosis. Our son around five years of age started saying single words. At one point he was saying 100 single words. I had kept a running record of all the words Aarian was saying. It was very encouraging for us to see Aarian was finally using single words to communicate.

In the meanwhile, we were doing speech therapy for Aarian in order to help him develop communication and play skills.  This explosion of words stopped suddenly one day when he turned 7  The speech therapist was very concerned when we told him about regression in Aarian. He asked us to take him to a Neurologist. 

We made an appointment with the Neurologist. He was very concerned when he heard the regression our son was demonstrating. He asked us to take him to a hospital to do an EEG to rule out the possibility of a second diagnosis of Landau Kleffner syndrome.  The results of the EEG were consistent with Landau -Kleffner syndrome which in simple terms is the onset of seizures. This is a rare form of seizures that happens in sleep or they are called sleep seizures and they are very rare. 1 in 200 thousand kids get diagnosed with this kind of seizures. The Neurologist immediately put Aarian on anticonvulsant medication twice a day to control the seizures.

This was heartbreaking for us as now our son had a dual diagnosis. The seizure activity affected his brain in a way that he remains nonverbal to this day. He never gained the ability to say the single words he used to say once upon a time. We were told we should not lose hope and maybe one-day Aarian might be able to use some of the words again though he would never be able to have a conversation like you and me. Its been 7 years since that diagnosis but we have not heard any words from Aarian. He used the AAC device to communicate.

We always have to go every year to the hospital to do a repeat EEG. He also has to do a blood test as this medication can affect the white blood cells. He is responding very well to his medication. The dual diagnosis is very hard. We are so proud of our son as he is a very happy boy in spite the dual diagnosis and continues to make progress and has come a long way. We are very hopeful maybe someday Aarian will be able to say some of the words he used to say before. He turned 14 recently . It is hard to see him get frustrated not being able to communicate. We are optimistic about the future.