We’ve been through a lot of challenges with Charlie over the past several years but the one thing we’ve never had to argue about is his diagnosis. While the St. Paul Public School District initially wrote down “communication disorder” as Charlie’s diagnosis on his first Individual Family Services Plan (IFSP; we were living in Minnesota at the time), it was soon evident that Charlie had autism, and that’s been his diagnosis ever since. I think it’s been Charlie’s limited language—-when he was two, the only thing he said was “dah”—that especially stood out (he also had some “challenging behaviors”—some bouts …read more