Tatum's Tales: William

Welcome to Tatum’s Tales

Tatum’s Tales is a special place where we share the beautiful stories of children living with rare genetic diseases, syndromes, and other extraordinary challenges.

Parents submit their child’s story, and in return, I have the joy of photographing their little one during a complimentary mini session. These stories are more than just words — they’re powerful reminders of strength, love, and resilience.

I’d love for you to take a moment to read their stories, leave kind and uplifting comments to show your support, and share them on your Facebook or Instagram so even more people can be touched by these amazing children and their families.

If you’re new here, I invite you to start at the beginning and read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Tatum’s Tales: https://www.sarahthompsonprice.com/tatums-tales-1/

Meet William!

I’m so excited to begin this new chapter with my photography — bringing you so many more beautiful and inspiring children’s stories.

I first got to know William when he was in elementary school with my daughter. Over time, I also connected with his wonderful mom, and I was truly honored when she trusted me to photograph their family and share William’s story here.

I’m thrilled to finally share their beautiful photos along with his journey. They are such a sweet, loving family, and it’s been a joy getting to know them.

I hope you’ll take a moment to read William’s story, keep him and his family in your prayers, and share it with everyone you know.

William's Story

William David Worden was born on July 18, 2009. Too all appearances he was a big, healthy baby boy despite having a knot in his umbilical cord. As William grew he was a typical baby. He met all of the developmental stages in the normal time frame and within the normal ranges. When he as about a year old and started to eat a more regular diet we found out he had some food allergies that we difficult to diagnose. He began to fail to thrive and was loosing weight. However, once the food allergies were discovered and changes were made to his diet he began to gain the weight back and meet the developmental benchmarks again. In fact, he eventually grew out of the food allergies. William attended preschool and seemed to do fine in the setting. However, things really started to change when he entered kindergarten. In January of his kindergarten year when they really started preparing him for first grade his challenges started to escalate. He had trouble with attention, sitting still, and rigidity. I took him to the pediatrician and asked about an attention deficit disorder. I was reassured that all kindergarten boys have some sort of attention issues and that I may want to move the testing up a level. At the same time his kindergarten teacher had started a process within the school setting to also try and determine what was causing his issues in the school setting. That process was taking a while so I sought outside help without much initial luck. Once we were set up with an outside Occupational Therapist she determined that he had Dyspraxia and Sensory Processing Disorder. I thought we were done. Here is what he has and we have a solution of him attending Occupation Therapy to help him with these issues. In the meantime, the school had done a plethora of testing on him and wanted to go ahead and test him for placement on the Autism Spectrum. I did not want to have this testing done originally. I thought that we had already found a solution and I didn’t want to face an Autism Diagnosis. I was in denial. Once his Dad and I agreed to have the autism testing done through the school it was apparent that William was on the Autism Spectrum. There it was, William had Autism. Once we were able to finally get him all of the proper diagnosis and on a therapy schedule of Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and eventually also Food Therapy he began to make huge strides. In fact, most people did not know that he had Autism at all. He does have difficulty looking people in the eye which is probably the most telling symptom he has.  He is very bright and a very sweet boy. He wants to be a good student and his amazing memory has made that possible for him so far. He is currently a third grader. He loves video games, reading, and space. He wants to be an astronomer.  

What I want people to know as William’s Mother is that Autism does not stop him from being successful. It does not make him incapable of friendship. In fact, William is a very social child. At school he likes to go by Will and he loves to talk! It does make things harder for him in ways that might be different from you and me. There is a saying that if you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism. This is true. Many people know autism from the movie Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman’s character is much different from William. In fact, when I was in high school I babysat an autistic girl who was completely non-verbal. Her symptoms and experience with autism were completely different. She had no ability to communicate. The autistic spectrum is wide and vast. It became even more so when the Asperger’s Diagnosis became part of the spectrum. The causes of Autism are not known. Could it have been the knot in the umbilical cord, the lost of development at age one, or as many think is it something that happens with the brain’s wiring much earlier in development. The problem with such a wide spectrum of symptoms makes these things even more difficult to determine.  

William is a very special child. He is very open about having Autism. In April on Autism Awareness Day he always brings his class autism awareness bracelets. He is knowledgable and open about it and answers all of the questions his class mates ask. In fact, last year he presented them to his older sister’s Fourth Grade class as well. She normally would have done it, but was out of school sick that day so he said he would take them. I was so proud of him! He will do something amazing with his life in spite of or because of his experience with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. We can only wait and watch!