Justin Timberlake Makes Boy With Autism's Birthday Extra Special

Justin Timberlake Makes Boy With Autism's Birthday Extra Special
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Justin Timberlake made a boy with autism's birthday extra special by singing him a personal birthday song.

All Julian wanted for his eighth birthday were tickets to see his favourite pop star, Justin Timberlake.

Julian has autism and his parents worried that his 'obsessions, his volume, his repetitiveness, his clumsiness' might disrupt other concert goers and could led people to be unkind to him.

Julian's mum Marika Rosenthal Delan, 40, says her heart sank when they arrived at the concert and a group of girls who were 'dressed to the nines' sat in front of them.

Julian started to sing and shout: 'It's my birthday!! This is my present! This is my present! I LOVE YOU JT!!'

As Marika braced herself for her fears to be realised, something magical happened.

"The group in front of us started yelling to get Justin's attention, because despite his loud volume, Julian's voice was not carrying. Only repeating," Marika writes in her blog.

"And then before we knew what was happening, the group in front of us that had turned out to be so incredibly kind all night to our birthday boy, and these gorgeous girls who I was convinced would be totally annoyed by Julian, had captured Justin's attention. "

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And then it happened. Justin Timberlake was singing Happy Birthday. They all were.

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"All my mama worries had been for naught," adds Marika. "Everyone was embracing our boy in the way I was afraid they wouldn't.

"Here we stood while thousands of people lifted him in song to celebrate the day he came into the world eight years ago. That day that they lay his tiny warm wet body on my still heaving, labor-heavy chest."

Marika says that she and her husband have always nurtured Julian's deep connection with music and his love of Justin Timberlake may have started to develop before he was even born, as Justin's songs were on her exercise playlist while she was pregnant.

"So thank you Justin Timberlake and the 'Sexy Ladies' sitting all around us," she writes. "Thank you for showing me I was wrong about what the world would do when they saw my son.

"Thank you for seeing him and not just his disability. Most probably didn't even know he had one. They were too busy singing along with Justin.

"They were all too busy showing me a lot about human nature, and a few things about love."

More on Parentdish: What is autism?