Around the country today, thousands of young children will take their first steps into the formal education system.
John Meehan will be one of them. He will have a school bag, his new uniform and possibly a tear on his face, as he lets go of his parents' hands and walks into Glaunthaune National School, Cork, where principal Ms Maura O'Keefe and her staff are looking forward to meeting him.
But unlike the other children, John will be accompanied by a special needs assistant. She will sit in the classroom with him in case he needs a helping hand. When he comes home from school, he also has to work for another few hours with his tutor.
But apart from these differences, John will be like any other exuberant schoolboy. It has taken his parents almost two years to achieve their dream - of John sitting in a mainstream class with other boys and girls.
Noreen Meehan says she will be "scared and excited" this morning. Her husband, John, says it is an important day. "We won't always be around, so we hope this is the start of John learning to fend for himself in life. We hope our story illustrates that autistic children can make it into mainstream classes. There is light at the end of the tunnel."
The last two years have been trying for both parents. They have already paid out £45,000 for tutors, experts and other costs. They have remortgaged their home, converted one of the rooms into a classroom and fundraised endlessly.
They have taken legal action against the Department of Education for "appropriate education" facilities for their son. The Department is now paying the couple a home tuition grant, but it does not cover all the hours John is tutored.
They have been helped during the bleak days by people like Kathryn Sinnott, famous for the campaign on behalf of her autistic son, Jamie. "She has almost been like a mother figure to us," they say. Even with such support, the journey up has been long and agonising.
They found out their son was autistic in October 1999. He was not talking like a normal child. They tried to get John a place in Cabas, the special school in Cork that caters for autistic children. There was no room, so John was put on a waiting list. He began to deteriorate. It was impossible to toilet-train him, he could not speak properly and sometimes he would lie on the floor and scream.
Eventually his father found a teacher familiar with autism to give him special lessons at home. She sat down with John and refused to let his kicking and screaming put her off.
She used Applied Behavioural Anaylsis (ABA), a method of teaching which has been championed by hundreds of parents of autistic children, and he started to improve dramatically.
He could be toilet-trained, his speech started to improve and he was able for simple tasks. The ABA method, which has been opposed by the Department of Education, was starting to pay off.
However, the teacher had to go to America and the Meehans, in her absence, entered their darkest period. "John just totally regressed. He would just lie on the floor again screaming. He lost the toilet training and was really very bad," his father remembers.
In an attempt to socialise John's parents booked him into a local playschool. After two days they got a phone call from the school. Their hearts sank. The school could not manage him and they asked politely that he not come back.
But after educating themselves about autism via the Internet they were not going to give up on their son, and believed ABA and other methodologies could transform him into the carefree boy he is now.
Further tutors were found and through contacts in the Cabas school the parents found out about a revolutionary new system to treat autism at the Behaviour Intervention Association (BIA), based in San Francisco.
Knowing the importance of tackling autism early in a child's life, Noreen and John travelled to San Francisco, with John jnr, two tutors and their 10-year-old boy Michael. The trip was again financed by themselves even though they were already in debt.
The American programme proved highly successful because it mixed elements of ABA and other methodologies and was tailored specially for John. While John screamed and roared incessantly for the first day, he eventually enjoyed himself and the tutors gained valuable insights.
On the aircraft home, however, their son's sometimes lively behaviour annoyed some passengers and his father remembers almost coming to blows with one American who was less than understanding.
On his return John enthusiastically threw himself into new classes, which were informed by the philosophy at the San Franciscan centre. After several months his mother could see the enormous progress he was making. A place in a mainstream class was becoming a realisable goal.
While he soon developed the skills to enter a mainstream class, his parents were worried about the presence of other children in that class. So throughout this year they and the tutors have socialised John as much as possible.
"He has been in play areas and summer camps, and we've had children in to play with him here, so he is very used to other children," says Noreen. "He can now go into a restaurant with us and order his own food. He can dress himself, feed himself and communicate what he wants. The progress he has made has been remarkable."
The power of the individually tailored eclectic tuition (which mainly draws on ABA) cannot be over-emphasised, say the parents.
"Even buying his school jumper was connected with the classes. Before we went to the shop the tutors used pictures and booklets to familiarise him. We went through all the phrases, so when he went into the shop to try them on, he was able to say `too big' or `too small'," she says.
So what of his first day at school?
"Well, hopefully, it will be a great day. Its like a third-level student getting 20 degrees at once. It is a great achievement for him. The special needs assistant will be there, but only if he finds himself having difficulty," says Noreen.