Yesterday ABC News reported on the difficulty of diagnosis and featured Jason Ross. Today’s ABC New looks at life after an autism diagnosis and interviews three mothers of autistic children to describe how families adjust after learning that a child is autistic. “‘There isn’t one stream that families find themselves in where they get carried along…….Life after diagnosis is normally a haphazard unfolding and everything is learning as you go,’” Dr. Jon Markey, a child psychiatrist at William Beaumont Hospitals is quoted as saying. Families—as Judith Ursitti, Kim Stagliano, and Jennifer Wood note—too experience “physical, emotional and financial meltdowns”; marriages are strained (one mother interviewed is divorced); parents become advocates.

“Scared, patriotic, worried, determined, tired, depressed, upset, anxious, terrified, hopeful; hopeful, happy, ready, tired, relieved, and, of course, nervous and anxious”—-that’s how the New York Times is reporting that voters in the US are feeling while awaiting results in the presidential election. At the risk of comparing our family matters to the political climate of the nation, I’d say that may of those words describe how I felt after Charlie was diagnosed and, most of all, “terrified” (because I had no idea what lay ahead) and “relieved” (because there was a way to talk about “what” Charlie “had”).

The diagnosis was just the start of a huge change in all lives and while it hasn’t been easy or without tears, stress and sorrow, life with Charlie—so different, so unexpected—has been, too, so good.

Soon as Charlie got on the bus, Jim and I went to vote..

“Special”—as in “special needs”: It’s a term used primarily (exclusively?) in regard to children. Sometimes, just saying “special children” means the same thing. But one wouldn’t use the word to refer to adults with disabilities.

Consider this example: At at an October 30th rally in Rush Limbaugh’s hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, McCain-Palin campaign representative Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo) mocked Presidential candidate Senator Barak Obama for saying that he’s looking to nominate judges who empathize with “the disabled.” Sen. Bond was joining Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin at the rally. As noted in a press release from ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights:

“It’s Halloween and it seems that Sarah Palin’s mask of support for people with ‘special needs’ is slipping. Despite past pandering to people with disabilities, McCain-Palin are actually opposed to vital disability legislation like the Community Choice Act and they want to appoint judges who will further roll back the civil rights protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” declared NCDR’s founder and president, Jim Ward.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg has reported that McCain-Palin’s and conservatives’ “most oft-mentioned prospects” for nomination to the Supreme Court include Ohio Judge Jeffrey Sutton. Sutton was opposed by hundreds of disability organizations when he was nominated by President Bush after successfully weakening the ADA with states’ rights arguments. As a sitting judge, he has recently supported the execution of criminals with developmental disabilities and has undermined the Help America Vote Act(HAVA).

Disability rights advocates are further incensed that the McCain-Palin campaign has reframed this civil rights struggle, one founded in concepts of equality, dignity and self-respect, as an issue of “special needs.”

Disability rights advocate, Steve Gold states, “Yes, we need support services. Yes, we need inclusive education. Yes, we need integrated employment. Yes, we need equal rights. This not ‘special.’ These needs are based on us, people with disabilities, equal members of our communities. We are not inspirational nor are we ‘special.’ We are PROUD PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES who should push back when anyone describes us as anything but equal members of our communities.”

More about what was said at the rally at FOX News.

“Disabled.” “Special.” I know it’s just a matter of words—–and being the mother of a disabled son, and a son for whom talking and communication aren’t easy, I’ve become hyper-aware of how much words matter, and what they say and what they don’t.