Son and Father Pierce Autism's Veil

Neighbors, friends and teachers were dropping hints — some subtle, others pointed, even cruel — that something was not right with Timothy Archibald's first child, Elijah.
The little boy seemed hypnotized for hours by certain objects: doors, mechanical gears, the vacuum cleaner hose. He mimicked electrical sounds, knew the time schedule of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system by heart and had epic tantrums. Mr. Archibald, 43, an editorial and advertising photographer whose commercial clients include a maker of artificial limbs and Skittles candy, remembers thinking, "I can't raise this kid; I can't relate to him at all."
The tension at home was all but unbearable. Every waking hour had to do with Eli, who was 5 at the time. Why was he this way? Why was he that way? Was he mentally ill? Should he be medicated? In retrospect, the evidence seems so unambiguous, particularly once there was a second child, Wilson, to compare Eli to. But nobody in the household had yet spoken aloud the word "autism."
That was the moment when Mr. Archibald decided to look for his son, in the most literal sense of the word — through the lens of his camera.