jlp

It seems I am not alone! I should have clarified really (reading my original post back it wasn't clear) but ds#2 (3) is nt and I have an older boy of 7 with AS. I suppose my ongoing concern is whether ds#2 has some form of asd too and I'm wondering whether the poo smearing is a concern with regard to this. He was perfectly toilet trained for months (maybe 6?) prior to Easter so it's not that he never had the ability. He's also terrible for weeing when again he was absolutely fine. When asked why he didn't poo in the toilet he'll say he doesn't like pooing in the toilet or that he likes poo. I'm at the Child and Family Unit next Monday regarding ds#1 so may mention ds#2 too if only for some reassurance (they've been involved with ds#1 for quite a few years so have seen ds#2 since he was a baby) Thank you for replying, any further thoughts on pooing / smearing (indicating ASD or normal in all children?) are very welcome! Edited to add - my signature has come back (it had disappeared for some unknown reason as had all smilies) so I didn't need to explain about AS and NT after all!

I've already asked this on another (general parenting forum) but haven't had any replies and it's worrying me so hope no-one minds me asking here? Since Easter ds#2 (3 3/4) has started having lots (several times daily) of toileting accidents, wees and poos. He will go to the toilet too. I'm not sure how 'accidental' it is, he weed on the electric fire a few days ago (luckily he didn't hit anything electrical!). We've just moved house which hasn't helped at all but he started at the beginning of the Easter holidays before we even knew we were moving so can't totally blame that. He seems to play with it sometimes, particularly in the bath, and will smear it onto the walls. Tonight he pooed in the bath, had put poo on the wall and as I lent over to clean the wall he put it in my hair and on my top. I smacked his bum and feeling guilty now. So...is this really disturbed behaviour (I'm sure I read that somewhere but not sure if it applies to 3 yr olds) or perfectly normal for a 3 3/4 year old. His behaviour has gone downhill since starting nursery really and I'm getting a bit worried but not sure if I'm reading too much into normal preschooler tantrums.

G walked on his first birthday, walking more confidently by 13mth. I can't remember when he started to speak (although there is a diary upstairs somewhere) but do remember one of his first words was 'radiator' when he was tiny.

I've skimmed through and it does seem that the bulk of the money is going to be spent on While I do agree that more respite is needed this does seem to me to be a disproportionate (spelling?) spending of the �340m. Personally I would have liked to see more money spent on professionals - speech therapists, OT etc and maybe more social groups for disabled children to attend. Maybe even a few more specialist schools although the trend seems to be for as many as possible in mainstream. I might have the wrong end of the stick however so feel free to correct me if I've misinterperated (can't spell that either!)...

Ds#2 is 3 1/2 and has become extremely difficult from about 2 1/2. Up until then apart from him not sleeping (he does now) and real problems stopping breast feeding and getting him to accept food (he was 2 1/4) he was no bother at all. But particuarly since starting nursery he's been a nightmare with huge tantrums. He really is like jeckyll and hyde. Today he didn't want his bottom wiped ('that's the wrong thing to do') when I explained he had to as he'd get a sore bum and it would get on the new carpets he said he wanted poo on the new carpets) when I eventually did it by force he's clawed my face to bits, tried to bite me and had a huge tantrum. Every thing needs to be on his terms down to tantrums about me putting the ham in the fridge! Or not getting out of the car There's nothing hugely pointing to asd, he's sociable (but can hit) makes eye contact, no strange preoccupations like ds#1 had (fans etc from a young age), no 'special interests'. He does like numbers but I don't think that'll be unusual for 3 year olds (they're learning their numbers at nursery) I'm really feeling down today after a horrible week and a particularly bad morning.

Yes, but I had to fight for it. They refused on reconsideration twice but we won on appeal for the behavioural problems. The DLA people tried to say that we weren't entitled as G does not have learning difficulties but the appeal saw my point that yes he has 'high intelligence' academically (although this isn't reflected in his school work) but there is a difference between that and 'common sense'. G has thrown a brick into traffic on a very busy road (we were passing a building site and he wondered what would happen), he runs away, throws himself to the ground, hits people and shouts at them etc so mobility is definately a problem! Having said that apparently you can get a blue badge on low mobility if you state your case. We were turned down when on low mobility but I didn't explain our problems in much detail on the form and I think we might possibly have won had we appealed and stated why we needed one in more detail.

We have one due to severe behavioural difficulties when out (sometimes bizarrely he's fine!) It depends on the day we are having as to whether I'd use it. (And when I really need it it always seems to be in dp's car!)

OMG Bullet! I have exactly the same video of my ds#2 (3) It's somewhere on the PC I wonder if I can find it? You can tell how hard your little one is concentrating.

I was turned down on reconsideration for High Rate Mobility but won on appeal.

My little one (3) was overheard telling Grandma not to touch G's toy as 'G will shout at you Grandma'

Ours doesn't go around and around but we have a nice one from IKEA which shines multi coloured spaces onto the wall for only �13 ish. We have it hung in the middle of the curtain rail and it shines onto the blackout blind and looks very nice!

I told my son tonight (he's 7 and 1/2). I was reading a book and he wanted to know what I was reading. I told him it was about a little boy with Asperger Syndrome and he immediately asked if he had Asperger Syndrome so I said yes. I've mentioned little things prior to this such as him having ears that don't like too much noise. Tonight I kept the conversation brief - read him a few pages of the book and pointed out a picture of the boy with his hands over his ears next to the hand dryer (he remembers being scared of them). I'll let it have a while to sink in. I don't think he really understands himself enough to understand the diagnosis - I was reading some things out such as 'sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between friendly teasing and bullying teasing' ('I don't'), 'sometimes it can be hard to tell how people feel by the way they stand or talk or the expression on their face' ('I don't) etc! He does obviously have the difficulties associated with Aspergers but isn't yet at the stage where he can see that it's not just everyone else being wrong!

I do sympathise. We are currently trying to get our proposed statement changed for G (7) where the speech therapy (currently listed in part 6!) is a 6 monthly review and 'Mum to keep up the good work by reminding G to speak slower'. They seem to be obsessing somewhat on his rate of speech, which is too fast, but when I asked the speech therapist about all the social side of speech her only answer was that 'he'll pick that up as he goes along'. It's all incredibly frustrating. Can I ask how you found a private speech therapist and if they were knowledgeable in ASDs? I don't think we could afford regular sessions but I'm wishing we'd had our own assesment done privately before now so we could have included it in the statement reports.

We've just been given a council house (3 bed - we have 2 boys and are in a 2 bed atm) on medical need. We were originally turned down, I appealed and we were awarded medical priority 2nd time around. I enclosed some reports detailing G's violent behaviour, his need for space (and his younger brother's need for a refuge from his brother's behaviour) and also got a letter from the GP which was quite short as she doesn't know G very well but it all went to help our case. I also approached our local councillor who was prepared to help if our appeal was turned down. We still waited a while but this is because 3 bed houses are scarce but we did finally get one. Because this house had a stair lift in it was given to the medical section who awarded it to us even though we didn't actually need a stair lift if that makes sense, therefore in the end we didn't go through the traditional list. Keep trying, I've found if you keep at these things you will get there in the end.

I still never found out how they got the letters back!

Today G's teacher came over for a word. It's been a difficult day. Postie was crossing the yard at school today when G ran over and grabbed some letters out of his bag (reason as yet unspecified) and legged it. Letters were finally retrieved but were scrumpled up. He's been in trouble at school (stopped from going to the library but there'd been other quite serious things today too) and at home we've had a very serious chat about how this is wrong and grabbing people's things and running away with them is actually stealing. But when I thought about it later, the sheer insanity has made me snigger hysterically while hiding in the kitchen. The poor postie.

I feel like crying on your behalf. What a witch! Honestly! Where did she come from - was she a patient or staff? Just when you feel that you're doing ok someone like that comes along and upsets the apple cart. I haven't got any advice (I bet you're thinking of loads of cutting comments now!) but lots of sympathy and empathy.

Today's post: One pathetic longawaited statement One letter saying my car has been assessed as a total loss (accident on Friday) One letter saying I'm being sued for negligence and personal injury with regard to Friday's accident. It's 11am and I need a drink.

FFS! It has arrived and is waffly as anything specifying 'a high level of support in class' but what is high? Speech therapy is listed in section 6. Where can I go now to get some help? NAS Education line?

The deadline for receiving our proposed statement was yesterday. I rang when it didn't arrive and it was definately going out in the post 1st class yesterday but it didn''t arrive this morning either (I almost ambushed the postman as I drove past this morning, glad I didn't now). It's been a long time coming and these last few days are so drawn out I just needed a whinge! Fingers crossed for tomorrow (being a bit over eager I've already set up a meeting with the head at school, will look very silly if it doesn't actually come!)

I voted no - fingers crossed though as we're supposed to be hearing tomorrow if we're getting one!

Been thinking of you and your lad today Claire It's so hard to know what's right. x

Thank you Vicky. I hope your turn comes soon or you win the lottery so can tell them to sod their house and buy your own! Is their an appeal process to the 'low priority' assessment? We were originally assessed as not in any priority whatsoever and I appealed and contacted a local councillor (who in reality didn't need to do anything but was prepared to if we didn't get the medical priority this time). I enclosed some reports including a very worrying one from the Child and Family Unit and this scary report seemed to work for us. I've found appealing and appealing and appealing again does actually work - we also won a DLA appeal after being turned down for high rate mobility and turned down again when they reviewed this. Discovered a talent for complaining too! It's easier said than done though when you are worn out and trying to cope day to day. Hope you are well (I don't go on the other site much these days), it must be getting near the time for your new addition Janice

Bless him. I dragged dp (mostly unwillingly) to as many hospital appointments as possible, he seemed to listen more to them than things I tell him. It helped a bit but now we seem to go around and round in so many circles that I'm just tired and sick of the same old, same old arguments. I really don't know what the answer is - my instinct is to protect, dp's is that you have to get on with things AS or not (I suspect that mirrors a lot of couples). I can see his point in a way but not when its something that really distresses G. Does he have melatonin? G used to be very difficult to get too sleep and would manage to work himself into a very anxious state (worrying about noises etc) which made getting to sleep even harder. Melatonin makes him to sleepy to be able to get himself worked up in a state. I know the main problem tonight is school tomorrow though. Let us know how he gets on. x

<'> Clare I hope he's settled and fast asleep now. It's heart breaking seeing them so sad and it makes you wonder whether you're doing the right thing. How is he usually in the morning, are there tears then too? I think, personally speaking, the difference between the way I deal with my son's AS and the way that dp does (and the disagreements and sheer frustration with each other that this causes) is one of the hardest things do deal with. It usually comes down to the same thing - I'm 'too soft' and I think he's often too hard. Then sometimes I doubt myself and think is my partner right and how out of control would my son be otherwise (he's already pretty difficult, much worse for me and school though) It's a tricky one and so far I haven't found a solution - at the minute we're disagreeing on my going upstairs / downstairs with G for bed, toilet, anything he needs upstairs of downstairs. He's absolutely terrified and hysterical to be alone in a room but dp thinks we should force him to go up to the loo alone etc, I think we should let it come in it's own time (very annoying it is though!) Sorry I haven't got any answers but thinking of you.