tomisms

I think it varies according to your local area tbh. I first took my son to the GP when he was 5 (I thought he had Tourette's syndrome), was referred to a community paediatrician, who told us there and then that he thought my son had an autistic spectrum disorder. The initial consultation was out of our area, so we were referred to a different paed, who saw him every 6 months and eventually arranged for him to see a SALT. Then we waited and waited for other appts to come through, saw OT for his sensory issues, had a social skills course from SALT, we are still waiting for an urgent referral to CAMHS from about 18 months ago (I've given up on that one!) and have recently been seeing a clinical psychologist. His CP is absolutely certain that he has Asperger's, and we are currently looking for a formal diagnosis. So all in all, we started the process over 3 years ago, and are still waiting.

Hello, I just "found" this forum and thought it looked good so decided to join, but when I chose a username, it said that username was already taken, so I tried an old password I used to use a lot a long time ago, and hey presto, it worked! I must have first joined when I had suspicions about my son having Asperger's or when we first started going to see professionals etc. Anyway, I'm back. Really hope that I'll use this place properly this time round, and look forward to getting to know you all

Glad it all turned out OK in the end.

Hiya, I've bitten the bullet and decided to ask a question (I have many more - be warned!!) My son (almost 6) who is being assessed for AS/HFA has had many compulsive type behaviours over time. His latest one is that he runs out into the road, not right to the middle, but to the side where cars would park, and then he quickly runs back on to the pavement. He manages to slip my hand, or if I'm holding his hand tightly (which I try to do most of the time, although difficult when holding another child's hand and shopping bags etc) he'll try to pull me in the direction of the road too. I've asked him why he does this, explained the dangers over and over to him etc, but he just says that he can't help it. He says "I can't help it" about all his other compulsions too, such as licking everything, touching/tapping things, shouting random things over and over.... Now the licking I can see is a sensory thing, the tapping possibly a stim? But the running out into the road, I just cannot put down to anything other than an overwhelming compulsion to do something. I don't see that it is sensory, or a stim as I can't believe he derives any comfort from this. Anyway, I just wondered if anyone here could shed some light on this for me please, and maybe some sort of solution as to how to deal with this, as I'm worried that one day he'll end up getting knocked down by a car. Thanks

Thanks for the welcome Bruce I keep browsing the threads and wanting to reply and I have oh so many questions to ask, but I think I shall browse the forum for a while before barging in. I'm pretty new to all this ASD stuff and don't have much to offer others as yet, 'cept for hugs, and I feel quite selfish wanting to ask so many questions.

Hi, just thought I'd best introduce myself - I have 5 kids aged from 22 to 5, and the 5 year old (Tom) is undergoing the whole diagnosis thing for aspergers syndrome. When I first took him to the doctors I thought he had tourettes cos he has so many tics and weird compulsions (I'd actually taken him before cos he's very hyper and doesn't sleep, but got told it was he was the youngest and obviously spoilt!). I was very surprised when the paed verbally diagnosed him with HFA/AS. Hope to get to know many of you on the boards and hopefully share experiences with you, get some advice and hopefully be able to offer support to others.

Hi and welcome! I'm new here too and am just about to start a "hello" thread just as soon as I can work out how to do it.