Sunday, October 23, 2011

Parents of Five Face Multiple Challenges


SCRANTON, Pa. -- Most parents have a hard time imagining the challenges of raising a child with autism. For Nicole Nestorick and her husband, James Orr, it's a reality they face every day, times two: their twins, Bastianna and Sebastian, 6, are both autistic.
Mrs. Nestorick said she knew by the time the twins were 9 months old that her son was having problems.
"He wasn't babbling. At naptime, he'd bang his head," the Scranton resident said, adding that he did begin crawling and walking at the right age. "It's like a light switch. One day, we woke up, and it turned off."
When she approached his pediatrician, the doctor told the first-time mom that it was merely a comfort thing, and possibly the result of the twins having been born two-and-a-half months premature.
Mrs. Nestorick persisted, however, and put Sebastian into a sleep study, which would show his brain activity at rest. At 2-1/2 years old, he was finally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.

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