Jenni 'JWoww' Farley Reveals Her 2-Year-Old Son Was Diagnosed With Autism

During a new interview with Hollywood Life, Jenni 'JWoww' Farley revealed her 2-year-old son Greyson Matthews was recently diagnosed with autism. This comes three months after the Jersey Shore star opened up her son's speech delay. Greyson is still "non-verbal," according to his mom, though she says he's on a path of "positive, positive progress."

JWoww spoke about how her family is handling Greyson's diagnosis. "He has co-therapies [every] week but we’re going to step it up a notch soon and get him ABA treatments, speech therapy," she said. ABA stands for Applied Behavioral Analysis, which is a popular and effective treatment for autism.  

Greyson's main struggle was understanding what words meant. "Not that he couldn’t speak, but he would never know what his shoe is or if you said, ‘Greyson,’ he actually didn’t even know his name at one point until he was a little over two,” JWoww said. “So now that he’s understanding simple words, he’s come so far.” JWoww is happy to report that he's made "leaps and bounds when it comes to speech" and is already understanding words better. 

She's also spoken up about how isolated she's felt in her journey with Greyson. Her now-estranged husband Roger Mattews initially didn't think Greyson's speech delay was a big deal. "When Greyson wasn’t hitting his marks in the world of doctors, Roger couldn’t … not that he couldn’t care less, but he was like, ‘He’s perfect. He’s going to be fine. This is no big deal,’" Greyson said on The Today Show.

"In that aspect, I felt very alone because I was the only parent," she continued. "I thought, ‘Am I bad wanting to get him help because Roger’s not concerned, so should I not be concerned?’"

While autism was ultimately the reason for Greyson's delayed speech, JWoww says, "I don’t know if I would even call it a struggle because Greyson is perfect to me."

Photo: Getty