Parents' attitudes and expectations, and the discrepancies between what parents expect of children at a particular age and their own child's actual development, cause more stress and anguish than the practical complexities of life with an autistic person. Some amount of grief is natural as parents adjust to the fact that an event and a relationship they've been looking forward to isn't going to materialize. Continuing focus on the child's autism as a source of grief is damaging for both the parents and the child, and precludes the development of an accepting and authentic relationship between them. For their own sake and for the sake of their children, I urge parents to make radical changes in their perceptions of what autism means. There's no normal child hidden behind the autism.
Autism is a way of being.
It is not possible to separate the person from the autism. Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. Autism is not an impenetrable wall You try to relate to your autistic child, and the child doesn't respond.