David's story: a mother writes about her family's journey with autism. (Healthcare).

It looked so simple, so tempting--three speckled jellybeans lined up on the middle of a table in our house, with me at one end, my 5-year-old son at the other.

"How many jellybeans, David?" I asked, leaning across the table and staring hard into his eyes.

"David," he replied.

"No, how many jellybeans?"

"Jellybeans," he repeated.

"No, how many?"

"Many," he said flatly, staring off into space.

The two of us sat there, me looking at him, him looking through me. I knew the look. I'd lost him.

"David, look at me. David ..."

Silence.

My son has autism. In simplest terms, he has a brain abnormality that traps him in a secret inner world. Children with autism have trouble communicating, crave isolation and behave erratically.

David falls somewhere in the middle of this "spectrum" disease.

A few years back, he fixated on odd details--the swish of curtains, the hum of a room heater. If he looked at you at all, it was in shy glimpses or a glazed-over stare.

Once on the brink of bursting with language, he rarely spoke, using only one or two words. Trying to pry more from him was like pulling a stubborn tooth.

New situations sometimes terrified him. Unless I was around for him to cling to, he'd lie on the ground and cover his head with his hands.

At 5, David was due to start school. Encouraged by some promising autism studies, my husband, Jim, and I decided to send him to mainstream kindergarten rather than a special education classroom. But as David sat across the jellybean-dotted table from me, silent and distant, I wondered how in the world he would count, spell, or simply follow a teacher's command to get in line.

WITHDRAWAL

In a videotape shot when David was 20 months old, he seems like any other toddler, babbling and blurting words like "I want," "stop," and "mine." Later in the tape, he stands on a small living room table, singing with gusto to his older sister and several of her giggling friends. After each song, he bows and claps. "Tank you very much, tank you very much," he says proudly.

Soon after his second birthday, however, David began to withdraw, speaking less and keeping his eyes downcast.

Jim and I blamed the ear infections. David started getting sick with them when he was just 2 weeks old. Just get those colds cleared up and he'll be fine, we thought.

But his behavior got stranger.

His T-shirt with Mickey Mouse beaming on the front terrified him. Whenever I dressed him in it, he wailed and twisted until I took it off. No words, only cries and gestures of protest. During a trip to California, I discovered it wasn't Mickey Mouse that unnerved him--it was the short sleeves. In baking 90-degree weather, he threw fits until I dressed him in a long-sleeved shirt. He also refused to go barefoot unless he was in the bath or a swimming pool.

David also became increasingly obsessed with stuffed animals and figurines from his favorite movies. More bizarre, I couldn't take my eyeglasses off without him grabbing them and frantically trying to mold them to my face. "Glasses! Glasses!" he'd yell with a slur. Only when I put them back on would he stop yelling. He also began charging at his older sister, Arran, whenever she entered his "space."

After his third birthday, we stopped blaming the ear infections.

LABELS AND REFRIGERATOR MOTHERS

Autism was once considered rare; no more. In 10 years its prevalence has doubled--from 10 in 10,000 to 20 in 10,000, according to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. That makes autism the third most common developmental disability among children, following mental retardation and cerebral palsy.

Is something out there making more children autistic? Vaccinations, antibiotics, wheat, vitamin deficiencies, and even Satan have been blamed. So have mothers--supposedly because they were "cold" toward their children.

Only since the 1970s has the child's brain, not mother, been blamed. Researchers now know that autism is a neurological disorder, where the brain's wiring is crisscrossed or incomplete. Why that happens remains under debate but genetics often appears to be one component.

As David's behavior grew stranger, I took him to his pediatrician. She didn't know what was wrong with David, but recommended we have him tested for autism.

Autism?

"He's so young," I responded. "Do we really want to label him?"

"Sometimes you have to label a child to get them where they need to go," the doctor replied.

Then she referred us to a specialist.

FARAWAY LANDS

Dr. Ron Brennan is a neuro-developmental pediatrician in Anchorage.

After observing David, analyzing his preschool records and interviewing Jim and me, Dr. Brennan ordered some medical tests to rule out other possibilities. Jim and I were to return in a few weeks for a diagnosis. We should plan on two hours, Brennan said.

The next few nights were hell.

Around 3 AM, Jim and I woke with a start, the house ablaze in light and the sound of small feet tearing across the floor upstairs. There we found David, wide-eyed and darting from room to room, gathering toys and lining them up in the living room. We put him back to bed, only to have him burst to life 20 minutes later. None of us got back to sleep.

These phases--I called them "night sparks"--hit every few months and usually lasted about a week. Come mornings, Jim and I would drag our sluggish bodies into work, dark crescents under our eyes. David, however, appeared alert and raring to go.

What's more, David used to love books. He would turn the pages and say, "Who's that?" or "What does the horsey say?" No more. If Jim put him on his lap and opened a book, David just slammed it shut.

What was happening to our son?

DIAGNOSIS

The morning we arrived for our second appointment, Dr. Brennan, Jim and I sat around a long table in a conference room with the door closed.

David met six of the 12 behavioral criteria for diagnosing autism, Brennan told us. He assured us that we did nothing wrong to cause David's disability. "No-fault wiring," Brennan called it.

David's world is in sensory overload, Dr. Brennan said. Information--language, sight, sounds, touch--is processed in a jumble. Short-sleeved shirts feel like sandpaper. A hello like an assault.

"It's like everyone he knows is speaking a different language," Brennan explained. "He doesn't pay attention to people and language because he doesn't understand them. The world is too chaotic. So he thinks, 'Don't hit on me,' and tunes out."

But there is hope, he said. Experts have found that intensive education can break into an autistic child's world and drag him or her out, inch by inch. "The idea is to force them to use any wiring they have but aren't using," he said. "Get them to recognize the power of paying attention. Build a team to do it."

HANDS TIED

I looked into Alaska's Autism Intensive Early Intervention Project. For about 40 hours a week, trained volunteers come into the home and grip the child's attention. The highly structured University of Alaska program takes about two long years. It is modeled after a groundbreaking technique developed at UCLA.

But gaining access to the program isn't easy. Children are turned away because they're too old or for other reasons, including lack of funding. I received a rejection letter offering little explanation. A letter I wrote in response went unanswered.

We had to come up with another plan.

About a quarter of the time, autism symptoms don't surface until the child is a toddler, said Geraldine Dawson, author and director of the University of Washington's autism studies in Seattle. One theory is that a certain region of the brain doesn't mature until then. And when it does, behavior hits the fan--just as with David.

The key to penetrating an autistic child's mind is to begin intensive work when the child is young and most receptive, Dawson said.

With David about to enter kindergarten, I worried we were running out of time. How would we help him get there?

Not with health insurance. Our company refused to pay bills related to autism. We paid out of pocket for everything from doctors' visits to speech therapy.

I stepped back and researched and analyzed. I read books at the library and bought them at bookstores. I questioned parents more knowledgeable about autism than I was.

And I observed.

Four mornings a week, David attended a preschool for children with disabilities run by the Anchorage School District. His teacher, Franny Junge, seldom let him retreat to his private world. She used pictures, hand puppets, a Mr. Potato Head doll--whatever it took to keep him focused. "Look at me," she'd firmly repeat until his eyes locked with hers. "Good job, David. Good job."

BREAKING THROUGH

One morning when David was in preschool, I recalled Dr. Brennan's advice the day he diagnosed David. Latch on to his attention and don't let go, Brennan had urged. And don't do it alone, build a team to help you.

That's what I decided to do: Put together a team to work aggressively with David the summer before kindergarten began. I left my newspaper job for several months to devote much of my time to the project.

The night before the team began its work, I was up most of the night wondering what the heck I was doing. I had no education background and didn't know if my plan would even work. My stomach in knots, I did something I hadn't done since my first day of kindergarten; I went into the bathroom and threw up.

Then I took some deep breaths and got down to work.

Some of the team's members were hired professionals, others were volunteers partly trained by me. We set goals together, writing them on large sheets of paper. Then we met every few weeks to see if David was reaching them.

Sandy McKinnis, a speech pathologist, taught David to follow directions. "Put the hat on the chair." "Give me the bowl," she instructed, slowly and patiently. When David tuned out, she gently took his hand and placed it on her cheek. "Look at me," she said softly. And he always did.

Feisty and firm, Annette Leier is an occupational therapist who helped David develop his fine motor skills, which seemed to deteriorate after he turned 2. She taught him to use zippers, scissors, and markers. She made great progress, but the two often fought. Once David used his fingers to eat a bowl of spaghetti noodles. "Use your fork," Leier insisted, putting the fork in his hand. Unyielding, David threw the bowl across our living room floor. "Pick it up, pick it up," Leier ordered, looking smack into his eyes. David cleaned up the mess, then used a fork to eat a fresh helping of noodles.

Before joining the team, friend and neighbor Peg Mentele had never even been around a person with autism. No matter. She had a personal way of breaking through to David. Happy and enthusiastic, she celebrated each victory as if he'd scored a touchdown--laughing, howling, clapping. She taught David to throw and catch a ball using a technique I've never seen in autism treatment books. She gave a tennis ball to David, who in turn threw it to Cleo the poodle. Then Cleo tossed it back to David, and on they played.

Crystal King, a speech therapy major from Minnesota, taught David skills he'd need in his grade school cafeteria: How to open his lunch bag, put a straw in his juice box, and clean up. Two teenagers helped as well--a neighbor girl, and my husband's niece who flew in from Chicago for a month. They showed David pictures of Government Hill Elementary School, as well as his soon-to-be teachers and principal.

My role was to oversee the entire group, coordinate schedules, drive David to appointments, monitor his progress and setbacks. We wanted his first day of school to be familiar. I dreaded that he would lie in the hallway, his anus curled around his head.

All summer long, a team member came to our home each weekday around 9AM. That person took David to a room that has a small table and two chairs, a box of toys, and posters on the wails. Often they went outside.

At Leier's instruction, we rubbed David's arms each morning with a soft-bristled brush. The aim was to desensitize his skin so his arms wouldn't feel so exposed in short-sleeved shirts.

June was rough. David seemed overloaded, and we couldn't get through to him. He even stopped greeting people. "Hi, David," team members would say. "Hi, David," he'd respond, as if in a dream.

He also began gesturing oddly. When frustrated, he held both arms to his sides and opened and closed his hands like a manic, pinching crab.

July was better. David told Cleo the dog to "sit" and "drink the water." Likewise, David began to snip straws with scissors and follow longer instructions.

In August, he rode a tricycle by himself. He even counted to five. One morning, David and I were rummaging through his dresser drawer, looking for a shirt. He reached in and pulled out a short-sleeve shirt--the Mickey Mouse one that used to make him scream.

"I want Mickey Mouse," he said.

Good job, David. Good job.

Finally, it was September.

We pulled into a packed parking lot at his grade school, got out of the car and started walking toward the door. I saw in David's face something I'd never seen before: pride.

The two of us entered his classroom and took off our coats. I saw a neighborhood boy. "David, this is Kyle," I said.

"Hi, Kyle," David said.

Those two simple words made my eyes tear.

Today, David is about to enter third grade. In some ways he's soaring.

More and more, he looks at classmates, says hello, and even runs on the playground with them. Kids know he's different, but they like him anyway, encouraging him to talk, play, and work together on the computer.

Every summer, I assemble a team to work with David. Most members are college students. Their work doesn't cure him but I never thought it would. He still prefers solitude, and at times I wonder what his trancelike eyes are seeing. Counting those darned jellybeans is still a struggle but he's improving. We don't let him give up.

Sometimes David begs to get what he wants. He'll shove books in my face while I'm trying to cook dinner. "Read this to me," he pleads, over and over.

I don't get annoyed. I celebrate.

Linda Weiford is a former newspaper who now works as a freelance writer in Bend, Oregon. David is now 8, his sister, Arran, is 14.