File folders stuffed with evaluation forms, letters and handwritten notes document a monthslong struggle to make sense of Texas special education rules, procedures and diagnoses.

I stopped breathing for at least a minute when they labeled my children as autistic.

Meets the eligibility. That was the wording on the evaluations.

Houston ISD's special education staff completed assessments of my daughter and son, both grade school students, and determined they met the criteria for the autism spectrum disorder in 2023.

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Those words lingered in my thoughts, too: Autism spectrum disorder.

Part of me believed it, the other part had tremendous doubt. What if it's something else? What if I never find the answer?

During an evaluation meeting, a special education staffer asked, "What did you think they had?"

"Not autism," I said, recalling conversations with a few colleagues at the Chronicle who had autistic children. My colleagues seemed shocked by my children's assessments because, in their eyes, mine didn't have the textbook characteristics of autism.

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