Mak66

Many thanks for all the previous comments. He has been diagnosed as ASD, and there is also the belief that he has Dyspraxia, both motor and physical. He only started talking at the start of September, at which time he was 3 years and 5 months. At the moment he does not do Echolalia (apologise for spelling), and when he is listening to the questions he seems to understand fairly well. He does seem to have some sensory issues, although I am not sure on the specifics, but things like electric razors (to cut his hair) and hand air dryers set him off. He is having a statement prepared now in time for school, but the speech and language therapist has said he is too young (I assume mentally) to have speech therapy at the moment. Sometimes he likes books and nursery rhymes, but its very mood dependant, and when he does want that, we can be reading to him for an hour, and he gets involved with the stories and nursery rhymes, which is really good. I think you are right with the imagination, he seems to have very little; which makes traditional toy playing difficult for him. Any imagination he seems to display is not really imaginative, as it is just copied from games we have played with him. He used to really enjoy puzzles and has a toy with nuts and bolts etc which he used to enjoy, but he no longer likes his puzzles, and a lot of his toys seem to have turned into sorting games, where he will empty it, and put it back in again. I think sometimes its boredom, and perhaps sometimes he likes to be in a place where its all nice and predicatable with a desire for sameness. My youngest rarely sleeps during the day, although he is quite a happy little boy and will play with his playmat and chat away to himself, so my wife is able to dedicate a fair amount of time to C, it just has to be something that can be stopped pretty swiftly if the youngest gets upset. Not sure what to do about nursery, they supposedly have a one to one person with him, although I have my doubts how much time she actually spends with him. We have an early support teacher to set targets etc, and we have a review meeting this week where I would like to discuss things with them, and hope that she might have some thoughts on activities. It would just be nice especially at weekends, if we could do an activity that he would really enjoy, perhaps I need to look into a toy library or something (if there is such a thing) so that he often has lots of new toys/games to play with...

Hi, Its been a little while since I have been on here, but feel the need for some help/guidance/thoughts...Sorry for the waffle, just trying to get our collective thoughts on the page.... My son C has been progressing well recently with his communication, and has started talking now which is great. We started thinking that perhaps his autistic tendancies would "go away". In hindsight I guess this was a little naive, his behaviours and attention/play issues keep coming back, not sure if this is related to his autism, or his delay, or dyspraxia or what. I work all week, so my wife is at home with C and his younger brother (5 months), and struggles to manage his behaviours. He has lost all interest in his toys, we try encouraging him to play with playdoh, draw, paint, read stories, play with trains/cars/other toys/jigsaws. We give him choices of what he wants to play with, but very soon into the activity he loses interests and starts to throw things, and all he seems to want is the television on. We don't want the TV to rule the house, and whilst it seems good in short bursts, and has encouraged his language, he just completely switches off to whats going on around him when this is on. So he has little television, and when he does have it, we try to get him to see things in it, and ask questions so that at least we feel he is learning/understanding something. He has also started playing with electric switches, light switches, and mutes and unmutes the tv, opens and shuts doors etc etc. As my wife has to manage both kids, she cannot always dedicate her time to him, and its during those times when he is at his most difficult. She and I sometimes feel like we are failing him, but aren't sure what we should be trying to do, not being young kids thinking of interesting things for him to do is difficult, but doing nothing doesn't feel like an option to me. We worry that he is regressing to where he was a year ago when he was very introvert, and rarely communicated, and sometimes getting his attention is difficult. There are a lack of activities for special needs children near to me, and whilst he enjoys going to indoor play areas and the like, his behaviours are sometimes inappropriate, and he pushes other children over, and takes toys off other children when they are playing with them. I think a lot of this is down to his lack of understanding of play and social awareness, and hope that the more language he starts to use the better his understanding will become, and these behaviours will lessen. I am trying to be positive, and see the good progress that he has made, but some days its very hard, his nursery aren't being helpful, just saying we need to do something about the behaviours without offering any thoughts or suggestions, and not being able to see what might have triggered the problem behaviour, makes it even harder, as it just seems like they are saying he is unmanageable, sort it out. My family all say he is fine, he is normal, he'll grow out of it, its normal 3 and a half year old behaviour etc etc; I hope they are right, but increasingly I just think they don't see him as much as we do, so don't see it. Well that's the waffle over, appreciate any thoughts you may have. Mark

He has seen a speech therapist, but not for speech therapy, he has gone for social play skills rather than verbal skills. Unfortunately I don't know how his asking for play compares with a non ASD child, but he prefers to be in company where possible. He had his hearing checked and it came back as fine. He has limited imaginative play, and most of that is from copying us, so not really imaginative. I'm not sure if everyone is convinced on his diagnosis, he is due to be seen by his consultant in the next few weeks, perhaps we will know more then. Its just difficult, and some starts of words he started to say he has stopped, and I worry its falling into the same pattern as before he was diagnosed where he would say a word, then not bother... Perhaps I just need to wait and see what happens, the nursery seems to think it will come, and the group he goes to on wednesdays for communication and play skills seem very positive. I suppose if there is something that I can do, or a technique I could employ to encourage the sounds, I would like to. So far the help we have had has been very good, but as he seems in the most part to not exhibit many ASD traits, we are focusing on the talking, which the help does not seem to be, at least not yet.

Sorry for the delayed response.... He doesn't repeat back what we say at all. Not heard of SALT, they are not involved, at the moment we communicate with talking and using Makaton signing. He likes to play with us, and will ask us to play any number of activities with him, he does this by either taking us to the toy, or signing to us to tell us what he wants to play. He brings jigsaw puzzles for us to do with him, and he takes us to other things he wants to play with. He enjoys playing with his trainset and jigsaw puzzles, and loves to run around and climb etc, and often likes to be chased in the garden.

Hi, Just wondered if any of you had any pearls of wisdom for encouraging a non-verbal ASD child to talk. My son is almost 3 and a half now and does not talk, he has a couple of words, if you really push and look for them, but he seems reluctant to use them, or try to make any new word-like sounds. Am concerned as he is getting towards the point of going to school, so if there is anything that might help I am willing to give it a try! So far all the proffesionals are concerned about his communication and understanding, which seems to be really good (as far as I can tell) but no-one has suggested anything to encourage the verbals. Any advise or help would be appreciated! Thanks a lot. Mak

Hi all, Thanks very much for your replies, its nice to know that there is somewhere I can go to get a bit of support from people who are going though similar things, or have been through similar things to me. Kelly, I read your hello post earlier, sorry to hear that your son is having such a tough time at school, and I hope that you are able to get the help that you need for him. His understanding seems good, and he will take commands, if you know what I mean without a problem. Hopefully its just a case of waiting, a small thing happened yesterday, might sound silly but for the first time he stuck his tongue out at me yesterday and was copying me. He has never copied anything before, I'm just hoping its all a bit delayed, might be blind optimism I know....time will tell I guess. Am going to see if we are entitled to any financial help, which I doubt but thought it can't hurt to try!

Hello, I am a father of an almost 3 year old boy who has been diagnosed as ASD. He is not talking at all, and has very limited communication, some pointing and gesturing. We have started going to an early support group to try and encourage this. I've joined this forum as it seems that whilst there is support for the person diagnosed with ASD, there isn't any for the parents/carers. He has a wonderful temprament, and I guess there are many things to be thankful of as he is a lovely little boy, I just really worry about him not really understanding about communication, or what any of it means, he seems to learn a new sign, but then use that for everything, and just wants us to say what anything is. I'm hoping that as this forum has lots of members with children with similar conditions, that someone will turn around and say, yeah my nephew was just like that, he's now 5 and talking, or whatever it might be. At the moment most of my family are in denial, saying he is normal and everything else, and in most ways he is. My wife is pregnant with my second child and worrying herself silly about my first, and that the second will have the same problems. I'm having a bit of a bad week, got the consultant report yesterday which said he had the understanding of a 18 month year old, and communication of pre-1. I just hope the course we are going on with early birds helps, and this playtogs class he goes to will help to get him to understand more about communication, and encourage him to want to do it more. Mark