Meet Parley

Parley is my charmer, tantrum thrower, sweet talking, yelling, dancing snuggle boy.  He always keeps us on our toes with mood shifts that are sudden and often times, unpredictable.  Parley was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3.  He was a tricky kiddo to diagnose because he did so many things that were great.  He had awesome verbal skills, showed no intellectual or cognitive deficits and to most people, even professionals, seemed like a quirky three year old with a big personality.  At home, he was aggressive, tantrumed for hours, verbally stimmed and was more rigid than a mountain.  At ages 2-3 we saw these concerning behaviors spike to an all time high and my husband and I often talked about how we missed our sweet, snuggly and happy boy.  With our diagnosis, we were able to gain access to ABA therapy which helped us manage his behaviors better and helped us uncover that happy boy we knew was there.  

Just like his pillow, he can go from one extreme to the opposite, but it’s become one of the things, that while challenging, makes us love him all the more. At 5, and with the amazing help of early intervention from so many specialists, Parley is able to attend a neuro-typical kindergarten classroom, is keeping up with his academic workload and is happy and thriving.  His autism makes him a very deep thinker, an amazing athlete and dancer and an engineer-like boy.  He loves to understand how things work.  His rigidity, while we have actively worked on it, has changed from problem causing rigidity to a very determined personality.  He is determined to reach his goals while also allowing himself, and us, to be flexible when life doesn’t always goes as planned.  We love this boy and are proud of all he is and adds to our family.  

Back to Stories.