Billy was born on July 23, 2006. That first day he was rushed into surgery for a blockage in his intestine. But after a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Gulf Coast Community Hospital in Panama City, he went home a beautiful, healthy eight-pound baby.

After his surgery, Billy never had another problem with his digestion, eating heartily and gaining weight to the point of being off the charts in height and weight at every check-up. He hit all of his milestones on time, if not early: He babbled when he was supposed to babble. He smiled and made eye contact. He walked at nine months. We vaccinated him on the schedule we were given by the pediatrician and other than the occasional low-grade fever, he never had any problems.

Billy never seemed to stop moving. And he didn't just run; as soon as his feet touched the ground, it was like he was shot out of cannon – sometimes towards the closest wall as he appeared to bounce off objects he apparently didn't notice in his path, pick himself up and zip off again.

He began to say little words at about nine months. He would call “Daaaa-Daaaa!” early on and identify his grandparents as “Nan-nan-nan” and “Pop.”

But then, a few months before his 18-month well-baby check with his pediatrician, Billy stopped talking altogether. I laughed it off to the pediatrician as a sign of stubbornness, but the doctor told me that “losing language” is a red flag.

He sent us for a hearing test, the first test in a long journey towards diagnosis. But I had no doubt that my child would be stamped “normal” after we jumped through a few hoops.

Hearing tests (inconclusive, because Billy wouldn't tolerate much messing with his ears) were followed by a speech evaluation. And then another one. And then a trip to the neurologist. And then an MRI.

During what would turn out to be another 18-month process, my emotions ran the gamut from extreme skepticism that there was anything "wrong" with my child to a growing fear that early doubts were entirely justified.

We began with speech therapy at 18 months, because there was no doubt that his speech was delayed. He wasn't saying anything. Twice a week, we drove an hour each way to our speech therapists where we paid $60 per half-hour for a session that wasn't covered by our insurance.

Concerns of our speech therapist – such as Billy's constant toe-walking – sent us to the door of an occupational therapist. After observing Billy crash and bang around a play gym, the OT suggested he could be suffering from “sensory processing disorder.”

Sensory processing disorder occurs when an underdeveloped nervous system can't make sense of the sensory input it receives. A child might have difficulty taking in sounds, for instance, analyzing them and assigning more importance to human voices than other background noises. Another child might be “tactile defensive,” making human touch almost unbearable to them.

Billy was a “sensory seeker,” they explained, hence, his constant movement, high pain threshhold and desire to walk on his toes. He doesn't get enough input from walking normally so he goes up on his toes so that he can feel each step more profoundly.

We couldn't afford the additional $400 of uncovered medical expenses each month that occupational therapy would mean, but at that point, like a godsend, I was introduced to the Early Steps program. Available for developmentally delayed children in Florida up to the age of three, Early Steps connects families with early intervention services, free of charge, that can include speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy and more.

By the time Billy was two years old, Early Steps had arranged weekly speech therapy in our home town and sent a nurse/early interventionist to our home weekly to work with Billy on other skills, such as sorting, problem-solving and fine motor skills.

In addition, they connected us with a wonderful program through the Florida Elks that provided free occupational therapy in our home once a week. Our OT, Anita Smart, changed our lives and our attitudes towards our son's development. With the patience of Job, she took on the task of educating us on the latest research and innovative new treatments, such as therapeutic listening, a headphone and music-based therapy that we started with Billy.

We watched Billy's development with fascination, and I'll admit, more than a little fear. He didn't say a word until he was two years old, and then in one week, he recited the entire alphabet and counted to 10. Before long, he was reciting entire books and TV shows, but he still would avoid making eye contact if you called his name and his “functional language,” actual communication of his wants and needs, was limited-to-nonexistent.

I was still looking for was an expert who would say, "Your son is definitely not autistic," because to me, that label meant the end. That I would lose my son. That he would slip away from me and lose his smiles and affection and love of life -- all of which he has in spades.

By the time he was three, it was clear that he was not slipping away -- but some of his differences from his peers have become more apparent. He was – and is -- a bright, beautiful, extremely funny boy. He clearly had an amazing memory and vocabulary. He could answer the question, "What is that?" almost every time. He recognized animals, plants, people, the planets, food ... but he couldn't tell you what he did during the day, what he likes to do, what his name is. He never asked any questions.

So on the advice of a neurologist, we went for an MRI. It was a harrowing experience. The drug they gave him to sedate him had hardly any effect, and when they put in an IV, a meltdown of Armageddon proportions commenced. The results of the MRI: nothing physically wrong. So we get our diagnosis: autism.

I asked Anita, "Is that what autism means now? A lack of brain tumor or seizure disorder or stroke? None of that and you're suddenly autistic?"

She was kind when she responded to me. "No, Amanda. There are benchmarks for communication delay, motor problems and behavior issues -- and Billy meets all of those."

Oh. OK.

I can say it: My son is autistic.

There are upsides to an official diagnosis. Suddenly, miraculously, our insurance covered all Billy's therapy. I think our Florida legislature's work requiring some insurance companies (and not all; there are big loopholes) to cover autism helped as well.

But I was beginning to realize that therapy wasn't like a round of chemo: a certain number of visits and Billy would be “fixed.” There was nothing any therapist could do in 30 minutes or even an hour a week that would make much difference at all, if it wasn't accompanied by a vigorous at-home program as well. We stopped looking for an expert who would give us the prescription for our child's disorder, and realized, we're it. His parents. We're the experts.

Astounded by doctors who suggested mood stabilizing drugs for our three-year-old, we committed ourselves to understanding the treatment options and making an informed decision about our son's therapy. We approached any proposed treatment with a skeptic's eye, first demanding the science behind it and then asking questions like, Is the treatment potentially dangerous? How will we know if it's working or not?

One of the most mystifying aspects of the world of autism treatment is the level of animosity and political bickering involved. Though there are as many ideas about treatment, cause and potential cure as there are autistic children, there are two distinctly separate camps at opposite poles: First, there are those people who believe that biomedical interventions are the only way. These folks are also firm believers, like celebrity mom Jenny McCarthy, in the link between vaccines and autism.

Then there are those who completely dismiss the effectiveness of any biomedical interventions outright, despite a large body of anecdotal evidence that some measures, like dietary changes, have, in fact, made a marked difference for some children.

Between these two camps is a spectrum as wide as autism itself. Bewildered parents are left to ping-pong back and forth between its poles, driven by desperation and hope.

This is my own personal soap box, but as parents of special needs kids, we've got to stop beating each other up. We're each other's best hope of putting together the puzzle of autism and as anyone who has ever put together a puzzle will tell you, that's hard to do when someone's standing in the background yelling at you, making fun of you and saying "You're doing it all wrong." Ok, that little rant is over.

Sometimes I think Floortime therapy found us, rather than the other way around. A move to Tallahassee necessitated finding a therapist who was certified to continue Billy's therapeutic listening program, a non-invasive form of therapy that he seemed to like and during which he had made some remarkable gains. Could we definitely ascribe those gains to therapeutic listening? No. But it certainly did no harm; there was science to back up its claims, and we were cautiously optimistic.

Our search for a qualified therapist led us to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital's Pediatric Rehab program. Kathy Merydith, our new occupational therapist, suggested we look into the innovative work of Dr. Stanley Greenspan, the co-creator of Floortime Therapy. She recommended his book, Engaging Autism, which we consumed enthusiastically.

Basically, Floortime demands that you get down on the floor and play with your kid. If he likes opening and closing doors? Well, let's do that with him. Eventually, we add a “playful obstruction,” such as a hand preventing him from opening the door. He has to make some sound or some effort to communicate to get the hand to release. And wonder of wonders, within one short 20-minute session, he was demanding, “Open the latch, Daddy!” every time.

Floortime assumes that an autistic child's primary deficit is his lack of connection with people. We want to keep him from disappearing into his own world and teach him that being with people is better than being alone. Being together means laughter and joy and good things. As such, we try to build moments of joy into as much of our interaction as possible, and build desire for communication.

Building desire for communication is key. Floortime differs from some therapy techniques in that it doesn't try to teach scripts to autistic kids. Memorizing words doesn't mean that you understand them. We're sure Billy can memorize anything. We want him to say “I'm hot,” because he feels uncomfortably warm, not because he's memorized that's what you say when you're standing outside in the sunshine.

Meeting all our criteria for scientific rigor, Floortime passed one more all-important evaluation: it worked. Every time. Intensely engaging Billy in joyful interaction for a solid 20 minutes always results in some new gain, from a new slice of functional language to a new emotional connection with people. He cuddles his sister. He seeks out other children on the playground. And in one glorious, heart-bursting moment, he threw his arms around me and shouted, “I love you, Mama!”

He goes to pre-Kindergarten at Chaires Elementary now, where he loves his teacher and his classmates. He talks more every day, and sings almost constantly. He plays with other children, smiles and laughs, and breaks my heart with his capacity for love.

Floortime isn't the only therapy we're involved with. Billy gets speech therapy three times a week at school, for 30 minutes a session, and one 30-minute session of occupational therapy per week at school. Together with his patient and dedicated teacher, Mrs. Thorp, Ms. Stacee (his OT) and Mrs. Burch (speech therapist) create visual supports to help him better manage his day: He has a picture schedule, a social story for the bathroom, a visual timer, and pictures of his classmates.

He also gets 45 minutes a week of private OT and 45 minutes a week of private speech therapy through Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. TMH has a wonderful "sensory gym" full of swings and various therapy balls and other interactive toys. Billy runs in there like it's Christmas morning. Both his OT (Ms. Kathy) and his speech therapist (Ms. Janet) are trained in Floortime and involve either myself or Dave in every therapy session. (I think that is incredibly important; if you can't observe and participate in the therapy session and reinforce it with what you're doing at home the rest of the week, it's a waste of time.) A special perk for TMH clients is that Billy also gets to attend, free of charge, music therapy once a week. And he LOVES that.

Because our therapists helped us discover that we could use music as a way "in," we also signed him up for weekly Kindermusik sessions -- a class we attend as a whole family now. I cannot speak highly enough of this program and our wonderful teacher, Jaci Niks. She has a gift with children that is truly a miracle -- not to mention a beautiful singing voice.

Billy isn't cured by any stretch of the imagination. “Cure” isn't a word we use any more. What does it mean? We sort of like “recover,” because we're cautiously optimistic than he can recover from his most damaging symptoms. But we wouldn't want him to be “cured” of his excellent memory, his pitch-perfect singing voice or his fascinating ability to make mental associations and connections that would never occur to us.

Most likely, autism is a brush with which Billy will be painted the rest of his life; the picture may change with time, but we have no doubt it will always be beautiful.