Nurul Dhamirah Adam never wanted children. In fact, when she married her husband Muhammad Fazli in September 2017, she had even asked him if it was a dealbreaker.
But he accepted her decision and the two started building a life together without the expectation of parenthood.
Five months into their marriage, however, Dhamirah, 31, found herself staring at a positive pregnancy test. She was two months pregnant. It was not what she had planned, but her initial shock gave way to quiet excitement and she began to embrace the unexpected journey into motherhood.
She gave birth to her son Adam Rizq in 2018.
In 2020, when Adam was 18 months old, Dhamirah and Fazli had a second child, a daughter. During her confinement, Dhamirah noticed something different about Adam, and a creeping worry started to form.
“I saw other kids around Adam’s age talking. And I thought, why are the other kids talking? He is already 18 months old and he is not even talking at all.”
The quiet observation turned into late-night sessions on the internet, researching children’s milestones and trawling through parenting forums. She discovered that, according to developmental guidelines, most toddlers should start speaking at least a few words by the age of 18 months.
Dhamirah and Fazli then came across an online autism screening test and decided to try it with Adam. One of the questions was, “Does your child respond to his name?”. Adam did not respond, Dhamirah said.
“It also asked if there was any joint attention and we noticed how he played. He did not even come to ask, Mummy, do you want to look at this or that. There was no eye contact and he was also unable to jump,” she added. Joint attention refers to a child’s ability to coordinate his or her attention with others and share the same experience.
Each checkbox they couldn’t tick was another knot in her chest. Her mother’s intuition kicked in: Adam might have autism.
