When Mark Jameson walks across the stage May 30 to receive his diploma from Chapin High School, it will be the grand finale of an educational journey that took him from a near-silent toddler and frustrated first grader to a loquacious and personable young man.
The milestone will be cheered by his family, parents Donnie and Theresa Jameson, and brothers, Matthew and Michael, and the dozens of teenage friends Mark has come to know as he learned to master a regular school and take control of his autism.
There will be his football team friends, whose birth dates he knows by heart. (He demonstrated that feat at a football camp talent show Lets just say that overloaded my memory, Mark noted.)
There will be his teachers, who championed him and his classmates who nominated him for prom king and crowned him Biggest Flirt among the senior superlatives.
But it may be Mother Theresa, as 19-year-old Mark jokingly dubs his mom, who will register the most emotion.
It was she who noticed early on that her second son, born 20 months after older brother Matthew, was not focusing on her face or her movements, as most infants do at birth. It became even more clear that Mark was different after the birth of Michael, now 14.
Mark refused to talk for his first three years When he wanted something he would pull on you or lean on you, his father said. He was not reaching normal milestones.
Some doctors told her it could be Asbergers syndrome, but suggested she wait until he was age 6 to investigate.
Theresa Jameson, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, refused to wait, fearing she was losing precious time for learning and socialization. She pushed to begin the familys long, and sometimes baffling, slough toward diagnosis and treatment.
By age 4, Mark did have a diagnosis high-functioning autism from Dr. Jane Charles, a MUSC developmental pediatrician, which prompted the family to begin intensive therapies known as applied behavioral analysis. One young woman who was getting a degree in speech therapy lived with the family for a time to assist Mark.
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A milestone for Mark: After a diagnosis of autism, regular classes, friendship and graduation