Transcript

MARK LOVE:

My preconceptions of autism have changed a lot since diagnosis. Diagnosis itself was hell. I went into a room with my wife with a child who was showing no signs of speaking, or he was doing it very, very slowly.

I came out of that room 15 minutes later with an autistic child, essentially a completely different child. And there was that complete-- for the first few months-- feeling that oh my god, we've lost him. He's dead. You know, that child, that path, everything we've mapped out for him is gone. That is not going to happen.

Once you go over the initial shock, the initial mourning, you realise that actually he's still the same Zack that he was before that 15 minutes of very uncomfortable diagnosis. And we are extremely lucky in that our son has always been very jolly and very friendly, very emotional, very into hugs. And we've also found that contrary to the belief that they are shut down and they cannot develop, that we've managed to help him develop, that we've managed to make him make eye contact and enjoy making eye contact and also enjoy it and know that he's controlling our behaviour and our moods by giving us eye contact.