Jenni 'JWoww' Farley Reveals Son Greyson, 2?, Has Autism After Opening Up About His Speech Delay
Jenni “JWoww” Farley‘s son Greyson Valor has been diagnosed with autism.
The Jersey Shore: Family Vacationstar shared her 2½-year-old’s latest health news in an interview with Hollywood Life, revealing, “Greyson, he was recently diagnosed with autism.”
A rep for Farley has not responded to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
The diagnosis announcement comes three months after the mother of two — who shares Greyson and 4-year-old daughter Meilani Alexandra with estranged husband Roger Mathews — revealed her little boy “isn’t speaking” yet and attends “therapy three times a week.” Two weeks later, she shared an update on his story.
And while Greyson is still presently “non-verbal” according to his mom, she told Hollywood Life that he’s currently on a path of “positive, positive” progress.
“He has co-therapies [every] week but we’re going to step it up a notch soon and get him ABA treatments, speech therapy,” said Farley, 32, adding that Greyson has “made leaps and bounds when it comes to speech” — specifically, “He’s understanding words better, which was his issue.”
Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Parents newsletter.
A post shared by Jenni JWOWW (@jwoww) on Nov 17, 2018 at 8:26am PST
A post shared by Greyson Mathews (@greysonmathews) on Aug 30, 2018 at 11:40am PDT
Since revealing her son’s speech delay on an episode of Family Vacation, Farley has made it her mission to help be a voice not just for her son, but also speak up for other moms and children in a similar situation. However, the reality star revealed during an interview with the Today show last month that she has felt “very alone” in the process.
“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,’ ” she said of Mathews, whom she split from in September.
While Mathews’ outlook on their son’s growth was hopeful, it left Farley feeling conflicted. “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?’ ”
A post shared by Greyson Mathews (@greysonmathews) on Nov 19, 2018 at 7:15am PST
In a video posted to her YouTube channel in September, Farley opened up about how Greyson has yet to hit certain milestones for the normal development of speech and language skills in children.
Explaining why she wasn’t regularly posting updates of her son like she did previously, she said, “One of the biggest reasons was because Greyson wasn’t hitting his milestones the way other kids were supposed to. Another reason was because he wasn’t and still isn’t understanding a lot of words.”
Regardless, the MTV reality star still sees her little boy as the apple of her eye. “I don’t know if I would even call it a struggle because Greyson is still perfect to me,” Farley said. “But it’s something as a mom and a parent I’m going through and a lot of parents go through.”