Being told our children had been born with Down syndrome (DS) was traumatic to say the least; now we have come to understand that our sons may also have Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or some variation thereof.

Unlike when our sons were born, we do not question why this happened; only how can we help our sons have the best possible life. To understand DS plus ASD is like trying to understand why oil and water do not mix, the trick is understanding how the two change the dynamic or the perceived characteristic of the major player, in our case Down syndrome.

People with DS are loving and social; people with ASD are loving and not social; DS tends to mean that learning, speech and receptive skills come at a slower pace; ASD further reduces the same. At this point in time, there is neither a cause nor cure for either and I’m of the belief that there need never be a cure for DS; I am still wrestling with ASD, but if I had the option of removing one, I’d pick ASD.

In researching ASD via the internet, I discovered one common factor; there is a lot of information that is geared towards single mothers and there is an equal amount of information that tells parents what to ‘look for’ but very little that tells us or offers us any idea of how to adapt, love each other and teach our children in spite of the difficulties we face. Imagine you are in a card game in which all the players speak different languages, there is no interpreter and if you quit everybody loses. Wouldn’t it be great if we all just stayed in the game and everybody won?

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. – Helen Keller