Hello I'm New Here

[Mak66]

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

[Kookoo123]

Hello, Mark. wow, I just joined yesterday and now I am already (hopin to) help someone,

 

My son, the one in the 'hello; just below you use signing and also had sever glue ar, which everything was blamed on.

 

A couple of things whic I am SURE youve been told, make sure when you are signing that it is quiet. C, my son would get confused if i signed and his sister was talking.

Make sure you have a sign for him My son had really fluffy hair so hs sign was his fingers sticking up!

 

Good news, he started talking at four and it was incredible. It was like he'd waited to get all the talking business learned, then started. From one word to long, albeit obsessive sentances. What joy to hear long lectures on space or blue-tack or whatever

 

With the signing, I guess he just hasn't made the leap to 'labels', that everything has one and the are differnt. Maybe take and print photos too of say two thigs and sign their name then give him the picture and he goes to get it. Like a ball, and a cup. We tried to do two a week new signs and he only ever oearned about 20 basic ones. It was enough to get by. But he had his own noises for things, watch out for those. They are HUGE progress, so if he said 'ugh', we'd say, "*sign name* while saying it wants book? Of course it can take a while to work out these noises. We were advised to Forget grammar with these things but remeber it with general chat.

 

Just what worked for us, but it sowrth a try,

 

Oh and avoid siblings/friends atlking ffor him. His younger sister was astute so she would talk for him and understand him better than us,

 

Good luck, Makr and sorry about typos, if you read my intro you'll understand.

 

 

Kelly

[chris54]

Just something that others will tell you.

Our son did not start talking until about 4, now at 8 we cant find the off switch.

 

How much understanding does he have of what you say?.

I remember the speech therapist not believing us when we said he understood most of what we said but had to eat her words once see had worked with him for a while.

 

Cant help you with signing as it was not a road we went down other than him/us making up our own way of communicating what he wanted.

Even now he will often just point or gesture and I have to say to him "Tell me in words".

 

The problem me had and I don't blame anyone is that the problems my son had/has were all looked at in isolation and no one saw the big picture, not even us. A lot of what was going on, behavior, we dealt with, still do, and compensated for without even realizing there was/is a problem. Its only now when the school or someone says, ????????? , we say yes he has always been like that. Anyway he was diagnosed ASD last year at aged 8.

 

Not sure if any of this is any help, just to let you know you are not alone.

[mumtothree]

Hello and Welcome i only joined a few days ago, my son is yet to be diagnosed so im not much help im afraid but just wanted to say welcome

[NickyB]

Hello Mark

[Mak66]

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!

[Suze]

Your baby is only 3 , give him time , he,ll develop at his own rate .My son was slow in most respects and is now 13 and you can,t shut him up .All autistic kids are different however and he,ll go down his own path and find his way.Try not to worry <'> , and welcome glad you found the forum

[lbj]

Hi just to say my son (now 3yrs 6mths) seems pretty similar really. He had an assessment just before he turned 3 and she found that his speech and language was barely scraping around the 1yr mark, his motor skills were allegedly delayed by four months (can't say I've any idea what deficiency she thought she observed there!) his visual, interaction and cognitive skills were delayed by 10 months and his self-care delayed by 16 months. He has come on in the nine months since then even though the only input he's had so far is a few fleeting visits from a speech therapist. He's just started nursery and he's still only using the odd word here and there (and I'm not sure he's using any at all at nursery) - I do worry that the other kids wonder what the heck is going on with him but the fact is that he seems to love it there and that's the most important thing. Timely interventions, like the Early Bird programme, do a lot for ASD children but so does time and love and all the usual stuff.

 

janine