Yesterday, I took my 3-year-old daughter, Kayleigh, to see her first movie, Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo. I was probably as nervous as I was excited; my wife and I had contemplated bringing Kayleigh to a movie theater for months but could never commit to it. For us, it wasn't just the potential embarrassment of a toddler crying or having a tantrum. Instead, it was fear of not knowing how a child with an autism spectrum disorder would react to a movie, and how the audience in turn would react to her.
Four months ago, Kayleigh was diagnosed with a condition known as pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified, or PDD-NOS. One of the vaguest and most maddening titles ever conceived for a medical condition, PDD-NOS is shorthand for saying someone is on the autism spectrum, but with varying developmental delays. For Kayleigh it means repeating verbatim what people say to her, using words out of context, having problems following basic instructions and difficulties socializing with peers. The symptoms can be so subtle that many parents (including us for a time) don't realize there's a problem.
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