What age did you know?

[happymonday]

My ds who is almost 7, I have known since he was 18 months he had a problem but it was not until he was 6 that the pead finally agreed.

I now have a situation here, i know my 2 yr old has ASD and although Im just getting into the system I know we have a long road ahead.

When I already have once with ASD it would be nice if I could get a DX for my second one quicker than a 6 yr wait!

[KarenT]

About two years old, but he was 7 and a half before he got his dx.

 

Karen

x

[Flora]

for Bill I knew on and off from the day he was born something wasn't right. Didn't know what though. He was dx just before his 9th birthday; it was only when his teacher talked to me prior to the assessments that I first heard of AS!

 

For Ben he was absolutely fine until about 14-18months old, then he regressed into his own little world of screaming until he was about 4. He was assessed between the ages of 3 and 6; the reason it took so long is that the first pead he saw wanted his hearing checked and he was found to be stone deaf due to glue ear; as a result for the next 3 years until he was assessed again aged 6 we put all his problems down to hearing loss. He had intensive speech therapy on a weekly basis for two years and it was the SALT and EP who wanted him assessed at CAMHS. Once his ears were sorted it could no longer be put down to deafness and he was dx aged 6.

 

Flora

[brooke]

i knew something was different when my O was 2 and a half, he was diagnosed at 5 and a half. Im in the same situation as you though. I have 3 boys, O has a diag of asd, ds2 is NT and ds3 im certain is on the spectrum but as of yet i have no diagnosis. He has been assessed and had an ados test, but ive been told there is nothing wrong

He is definately higher up on the spectrum than O as he has lots of speech and lang which O didnt, but it makes me wonder if he will get a diagnosis at all

At the moment im waiting untill he starts school and taking it from there, hopefully he wont struggle with school but the first signs of this happening and il be staight back onto my ds pead.

One good thing though is I do feel i am taken more seriously as i already have one on the spectrum but still not seriously enough as they dont see what i see. Hope that makes sense.

Brooke

Edited June 4, 2008 by brooke

[pearl]

Around 2. Dx'd around 5.

[Enid]

10, knew he had problems, mostly at school, just as he got older the quaintness/oldfashionedness became more noticable, I asked the GP to have him referred for assessment. Enid

[Tjololo]

Very early on. I would say I noticed that my ds was 'different' well before he was 12mths old. Looking back, I think I subconsciously realised that other babies would engage in joint attention with their parents, would hold eye contact and somehow seemed 'switched on', whereas my ds was not really interested in much. For example, he didn't care if it was raining, coudn't follow points and didn't engage very much. But of course, I had no idea why I had all those feelings because he was my first and I didn't know what babies were supposed to be doing! The next clue came when he was still non-verbal at 18mths ; by then I was convinced all was not right and started doing some reading. My ds was diagnosed when he was almost 3 1/2yrs old.

[JsMum]

For us I knew from around 18 months, he was very intensive and needed supervising constantly, got into everything, it worsened as he went into social setting, so nursery, parent toddler group, playgroup of which asked him to leave, he was impulsive and had severe social issues, wouldnt share, hit other children and adults, disruptive and very distracted, he was diagnosed as ADHD as 7 and just recently confirmed ASD plus, as he has got older his social/sensory issues are more apparent, so its more clear now, before his ADHD was very in your face.

 

JsMum

[hedders]

Felt dd was different i noticed more so around 3yrs old and then at 5years referred to a pead.

Some one gave me a leaflet about asd when she was 5yr old, never heard of this before, i learnt more about myself and has been a great learning curve for me she is now 7yrs and the pead has finally said she will try and get dd referred to cahms in september so fingers crossed.

Younger dd i noticed at 11 months referred to slt team and under same pead who said i was wrong and nothing was wrong she is now 4yrs old with language diffculties and expressive language delay.

 

like to add that i can also see both dds diffcutlies and get frustrated that no-one else can

[bikemad]

I knew from the age of about 2 1/2 n started nagging for help n for them to check him out from age 3 when he struggled at school.

[bluefish]

didn't have a clue! just thought he was quirky. nusery picked it up at 3y 4mths after he had been there a couple of weeks.seven months later had a dx. my mum started buying books on autism when he was about a year... Looking back it all made sence, I was convinced he was deaf due to his speach and language delay.

[happymonday]

Hmmm looks like that whatever the case we all seem to know by 5 at the latest. I do wonder if it depends how much asd thy have as to weather us as parents notice it sooner.I can remember at 1 really not liking my now 6 yr old who is ADHD and HFA. I felt the same way about my 2 yr old at age one and I am sure he is on the spectrum. Not that there is anything wrong with the spectrum but I for onc found life easier once I knew for sure, in writing, he has a problem and it was not just me, IYKWIM.

 

Kinda wish that dx dis not take so long...

[Bard]

Hmmm looks like that whatever the case we all seem to know by 5 at the latest. I do wonder if it depends how much asd thy have as to weather us as parents notice it sooner.I can remember at 1 really not liking my now 6 yr old who is ADHD and HFA. I felt the same way about my 2 yr old at age one and I am sure he is on the spectrum. Not that there is anything wrong with the spectrum but I for onc found life easier once I knew for sure, in writing, he has a problem and it was not just me, IYKWIM.

 

Kinda wish that dx dis not take so long...

 

Well, I didn't think of AS until he was 8 and a bit, but his dx came very quickly after that.

We had been tracking his behaviour for a year or so, but we both thought he was just immature and naughty at school.

In my pathetic defence, he has no other comorbids, my daughter is not exactly average and I'm sure that my OH is undx AS.

So many things that seemed normal to us were not concerns, and our home environment supported his AS needs without anyone recognising why. I was relieved to get a dx, because all sorts of things suddenly made more sense.

[pookie170]

I knew when Cal was a baby that there was something very different about him. He sat in front of a mirror, or played/examined wheels on his pram for an hour at a time, and took no notice of people around him. Even at 10 months, he evaded eye contact! Didn't push hard enough for help, I'm afraid, as professionals don't seem to take 20 year old mums very seriously! But was fobbed off until he was 4, when things finally got going.

 

Feel fortunate that we got help rather quickly after that, but it seems that unless you have professionals agreeing with you, its hard to convince gps,camhs etc that something is different...... I know of several people who found home videos invaluable, in the convincing process at the very least!

 

Esther

[cmuir]

Hi

 

I knew something wasn't right at around 15 months. Kiddo was diagnosed with AS at 4.5 - getting that diagnosis was an uphill struggle having been passed from pillar to post.

 

Caroline.

[biff]

I seriously had no idea till he started pre school. I thought he was just very demanding, I did worry very slightly about his speech because he kept repeating everything you said when you asked him questions but as he grew out of that I didn't think it a cause for concern. I didn't know anything about Aspergers until I was told he showed signs and even then I wasn't convinced. Still waiting for dx due anytime this month they told me.

[Zosmum]

Knew there was something from around 2 but everything was first put down to glue ear. When that was corrected she was described as very complex. dx with dyspraxia aged 5 then assessed by all kinds of people all saying she was a very complex little girl. We got all kinds of reports about Z from her having sensory processing problems and crossed lateral something or other? to being lazy and easily distracted. Eventually got full dx of ASD, ADHD, Dyspraxia and complex learning difficulties at the age of 11. The next test is going to be for Discalculia, which may explain why at 12 she cannot add 2 simple numbers together. She's feeling a bit down about it but she'll proberbly do hr usual blow up then forget all about it

[Imposter]

Sounds very similar to me with ear problems early on "masking" the "syptoms" of Aspergers...

 

Apparently people knew at an early age 2-3 that something wasn't right, but put it down to early childhood deafness/glue ear (surgically corrected)

 

Was dx - Clumsy Child Syndrome at 5

Dx - Dyspraxic + mild dysgraphia - 12

 

Finally Dx - AS at 26.

 

Quite annoyed in some ways I didn't know earlier on. Especially when I was going through GCSE's, A-Levels, Degree, trying to get work etc....

 

But c'est la vie - I'm not planning on wasting my time being bitter because someone else mucked up.

 

[Tally]

My mum noticed that I didn't like playing with the other children at a toddler group, felt I got nothing out of it, and stopped taking me in the end. When I started nursery at 3, the same issues cropped up and they suggested autism. My parents felt it wasn't autism and were encouraged by friends to keep sending me because I needed to get used to being around other children. Autism was suggested twice more throughout primary school, but my parents still felt it was not autism. I did not know about any of this until after I was finally diagnosed with Asperger's aged 25, after reading about it myself. I probably wouldn't have been diagnosed earlier though, since my diagnosis is AS, and AS was not properly understood when I was a child.

[smiley]

I had concerns when M was around six months. He avioded eye contact, didn't like to be hugged, didn't engage in toys, didn't turn to see a familiar face, didn't respond to familiar noises.....etc.... I raised concerns at around 18 months, when the HV said he was just like my brother (she was MY HV!!)! - he had a horrid time at pre-school - but they didn't have a clue what to make of him - and he was eventually dx'd at five, soon after he began school.

It was very frustrating for me - as my career has been / is working with SN children, ironically, mainly ASD children..... so i recognised the signs.

[Cariad]

From about 18 months as he used to walk like he'd been on a pub crawl, then after the MRI they confirmed it (half his brain is smooth). Then from about four years old for the tourettes, and finally 9 years old for the *obvious* ASD.

[madmumof5]

My DS2 was about 2 1/2 -3 when I first realised there was something different about him.He was finally dx with aspergers last wednesday and I am still in shock despite the fact that I figured he had got it no one else 'official' had agreed with me so far!!

[ryansmum2]

hi there

I knew almost the minute DS was born ! He was just so unlike my other 3, high pitched screaming/diffcult to feed ect.

He's almost 8 now and funilly enough on his birthday in a few days time we are 'meant' to be having the diagnosis from Pead,

wish us luck !

mel xx

[CarolineJ]

From birth. It was that bad.

[baileyj]

Started wondering when Max was 20 months old, felt sure at 2 and a half when he started playgroup, he was DX at 3. Now he's 7!

 

Jo

[aspiemum2twinsplus1]

I'd known for as long as I can remember that I was different but it wasn't until after we moved to Hastings the day after coming out of hospital after giving birth to my twins we came into contact with the special needs section of Sure Start (my oldest had speech difficulties at the time) and they spotted I was very like a boy with Aspergers Syndrome that was one of the children they were working with at some point after that. They told me about Aspergers Syndrome about the same time as people were begiining to supect the boys had an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The twins must have been about 1 year old to 1 1/2 years old and their big brother about 4 years of age. I was diagnosed at Maudesly Hospital and I had 2 visits there: one in late 2002 and one in early 2003. When my twins were 2 1/2 and my oldest 5 1/2 we moved to Romsey (at Christmas 2002). My oldest lost virtually all his autisticness/aspieness with the exception of hand flapping (shortly before we moved to Hastings he was diagnosed with Global Developmental Delay and with that one exception that was all that was left except his development was uneven not globally delayed). One of the twins was diagnosed with Autism probably when he was in Nursery (his special needs Nursery takes children from 2 1/2 until they start Reception Class). The other twin is presently on the list for diagnostic testing for Autistic Spectrum Disorders and has been recently diagnosed with ADHD. The twin diagnosed with Autism is also diagnosed overactive.