Kate: I'm already getting that, and I'm like, Oh, yeah, like, my agent was like, What do you think of this idea?

Think of a combination of speech therapy, occupational therapy, play therapy, feeding therapy, medical appointments, and appointments with his social worker. As you read, I hope you find yourself nodding along, finally feeling understood in something that can feel so isolating. In today’s episode, she reads a beautiful excerpt about her first experience with Cooper’s diagnosis and where professionals said he fell on the spectrum.Throughout Forever Boy, Kate Swenson tells readers about the journey her family has taken through the years with her oldest child, who has autism and is nonverbal. This book is amazing , I cried and cried in empathy, relief, recognition and acknowledgement and acceptance. I have followed Finding Coopers Voice on Facebook for a few years now, I myself work with Austin young people as a teacher. And Kate said her house was very noisy until she got a noise reduction volume reducing app that you could set it at 50 percent of the volume so it can't go up.

I always end this way, and before I ask it and answer it, you gave me a piece of advice for this last question that I use every single day. The process of getting a diagnosis, and the availability of services differs wildly from health region to health region and school district to school district, to say nothing of country to country. In 2013, when the DSM four went to five and Asperger's was cut out and PDD NOS was cut out and everybody was merged together, I think they thought more controversial things like that. Whether you bought a book, read from the library, shared it with a friend, or left a positive review. I wanted to believe if I just kept going, and kept doing more for Cooper, that one day, he would get better.Kate Swenson is the creator of the blog and Facebook page Finding Cooper’s Voice, which has almost 500,000 followers. you are all travelling this journey in different ways, but still so together, and that is simply beautiful. Kate lives in America and for the last few years she has been sharing her thoughts on her Facebook page Finding Cooper's Voice, and her blog of the same name. When my now ten year old was two I discovered her blog and found it helpful to know that I wasn’t alone.

And then in the beginning, I was like, you know, gunning for every treatment and measuring everything and just, you know, and at some point you have to like, go like, wait a second, I have my own life to my own dreams of my own.I just learned of your page and your story today, and I’m beyond touched and admire you and Cooper so very much! I have a big following of parents whose or anybody whose life just didn't turn out as they expected, maybe something just took a turn. Knowing that we are seen, heard, and understood as families living with Autism is an invaluable gift. Is there an excerpt you can read for us that would, you know, maybe you want to set it up and tell us what you're going to read or just to give people a glimpse? You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.