first inklings?

[lindy-lou]

what was it that first made you think that maybe your child wasnt acting the same as other children?and concerned you?

 

or if you are on the spectrum when did you first have any idea that you thought or felt differently to others?

 

[Suze]

There were lots of little things but the biggy was when he had a huge meltdown because I vaccumed his bedroom floor.

[justamom]

May area I would say sighns were him spinning and repeating his dvd's from beginning to end, oh just remembered food not touching on plate.

[Elouise]

Nathan...from birrth.

He was hypotonic, hated being held or talked to, had flexed fingers and overlapping toes. He was bad enough the peads kept trying to find downs syndrome I was convinced he had a disability and was 'wrong' somehow even by my families 'odd' newborn' standards.

Sam oh MY. The lad never stopped crying or attempting to gum his way out of his hospital cot from the moment he was delivered by c/sec and he is still on the go some nine years on.

Annie is an up and down one whose difficulties could be the result of a rough neonatal ride and Jo is well Jo.

 

All in all they are most definatly my kids. I doubt I would know what to do with a normal child.

[lainey]

i personally didn;t notice any thing nursey did they said this behaviour is far from normal i thought all kids were like him but he was my first so i thought he was a bit spoilt

[Zemanski]

I knew from birth Com was unusual, he was very intense (especially his eyes), didn't like to be held close (only facing out from the day he was born) and from 18months that he didn't interact with other kids enough but it wasn't till Com was 5 that I actually realised there might be a problem and that his differences weren't just character.

 

That was when I realised Com was struggling in the playground and on paper; he had been very interactive (a non-stop talker) and obviously clever at home and yet seemed unresponsive in the classroom and was falling behind.

 

AS was only considered over 3 years later by which time his behaviour was unmanageable and he was deemed unteachable.

 

I did say at his 3 year check when asked if I had any worries that I only wished he were naughty sometimes, then I'd know he was normal

[bettybiscuit123]

I always thought that there was something different about my son, when he was under a year old he never gave eye contact, and I thought that babies were fasinated by faces. Also he was almost always crying and would not sleep unless we wrapped his arms into a blanket and swung him to sleep in his baby bouncer, also he was very slow at being able to do the developmental things like sitting up on his own, crawling, babbling etc.. But then i dont know if my post natal depression had alot to do with my reason of thinking. As my husband only noticed there was something to worry about alot later.

[UltraMum]

In hindsight - ringing the NCT breastfeeding councillor when he was 5 days old and asking "How do we get him to go to sleep?"

 

I was concerned when he was three and a half and fell over everytime he tried to run.

[Lynden]

Logan was around 10 months when I first voiced concerns though there were signs before then. he had no interest in toys at all, didn't hold of play with toys and never mouthed anything apart from his dummy. He also started rocking and flapping around the same time. Oh and he didn't really babble/clap/wave bye bye, any of the normal stuff you'd expect a baby to do at that point.

 

Lynne

[loulou]

Hi,

 

I realised Kai was "different" when he was about 15months and i took him to mother and toddler group. All the other toddlers would sit on their mum's laps and join in the singing and actions. Kai would hide under the table, put his hands over his ears or run round and round in circles. He didn't interact with other kids (unless you call bashing them on the head interacting ).

 

I used to call him my "funny little man". He always used to walk with his head down making train noises (still does).

 

When he went to nursery i REALLY noticed his differences, but i put it down to the fact that he was an only child and all his class mates had siblings. He had also had a major bowel operation, so i thought his behaviour was a sort of "post traumatic stress".

 

It's weird when you look back and see all the little "traits" they had.

 

Loulou x

[mum22boys]

The obsession with the hoover at two. Got very intense and health visitor tried telling me obsessions were normal!!!! Lasted a year and so when it developed in to the lawnmower i just accepted it.

[lindy-lou]

i have always felt from birth that india was special,i cant explain why,i just did,then i knew something was happening when she would sit on her knees and flap her hands for ages,and when she started to crawl she would hunt out tiny pieces of fluff to keep in her mouth,which progressed to pebbles if she was outside,she would never swallow them just hold them in her mouth.i used to worry that because my nephew has AS that i was just reading too much into it.

[Bullet]

It was a combination of things.

 

That something big would happen and he wouldn't react. I mean he wouldn't even look a little curious. On his second birthday he showed no awareness that anything was going on, no questioning looks as we got to the seaside. The only time he showed any interest was when we showed him the camera obscura. When his baby brother was born I got a very sedate forehead kiss in the hospital and he didn't react at me holding his brother or feeding him. Nor did he show any indication he knew my body was changing when I was pregnant. Now he will occassionally look at his brother and has given him a book and a forehead kiss, but they are rare occurences. He seems to have an inate lack of curiosity, or of wanting to draw attention to things at least.

The way he plays with his toys. No pretend play, on even the simplest of levels and he'll concentrate on studying the toy, always looking very serious. Eg with his trains he'll try and work out how the magnets work rather than pushing them along the track. He'll also spend ages just pushing buttons over and over, even when there's no sound.

His language. Excellent echolalia, non existent spontaneous language. It's very disconcerting to have a toddler that can repeat back at least part of a story they heard in the morning (and said to themselves, not trying to interact with you), but be unable or unwilling to say they've seen a cat.

His interaction with other children. He will not want to join in with any singing or dancing and will often take himself well away from the other children. At nursery he would make no noises unless the other toddlers were asleep.

On some levels he seems so much younger than he is. He struggles to understand when you want him to do something and it's difficult to know what he can understand because he displays so little emotion. And yet, because he is so studious a lot of the time and so solemn, he can seem much older.

Edited January 23, 2006 by Bullet

[Bullet]

I am pretty sure I have mild Aspergers and it's several things with me.

 

Not being able to talk to people. I want to, but I find it difficult to keep a conversation going. I never know when to join in and DH tells me I pause at odd places and overlabour points.

I have no accent and flap my hands. I also find it difficult to talk about my feelings.

I know what peer pressure is, but have no wish to be a part of it.

I have a good imagination, but can't imagine being someone else. I also find it difficult to accept another point of view.

I have very narrow interests and also need to keep to a routine. If things have to be changed I have to plan things carefully otherwise I get stressed.

I used to take things a lot more literally, but not so much now. Although I do still get the literal picture of the metaphor in my head. Eg I know what "paint the town red" means, but I still think of a person painting some buildings with red paints.

[Tylers-mum]

T had a fasination with lights and spinning wheels on cars instead of playing with them. Then he went onto echoalia speach and that's when I really started to suspect Autism as I used to look after a lil boy a few years before whom was classically autistic so knew of it. Then when I started him in playgroup he wasn't upset when I left him and he preferred solitary play whereas all the other kids his age were playing parallel or together.

Lots of other things but I guess his echoalia speech and him speech delay was the biggy.

Also, another one was when he covered his ears and screamed blue murder when we were on a bus full of people (he's ok with that now-ish) and with loud noises. He'd scream at the hoover, drills, lawnmowers etc etc.

Edited January 22, 2006 by Tylers-mum

[lil_me]

I remember standing watching my son play in the garden with other children when he was about 4 thinking why are all the other kids on hands and knees playing animals and he's just looking at them as if they have 3 heads or something.

 

His lack of speech, echolia, obsessions, sensory issues etc I just pressumed were just him as noone else mentioned anything being 'wrong' as such.

Edited January 23, 2006 by lil_me

[Jill]

I didn't spot anything. It was the private nursery that flagged that there was a problem - they were initially concerned about his lack of speech, but they brought the Child Development people in when he had to move in the nursery from the baby area to the toddler area. This was a really small change as the baby den was just a fenced off section in the same room as the toddler area. He was so upset by this tho & found it really difficult to cope. He went from a child who ran happily into nursery to one who would NOT let go of mummy in the morning.

[UltraMum]

We had the diagnosis of ADHD at 4 and then the suggestion of autism as he went into Y1 at 5 and a bit - Hubby wouldn't agree with this until a b'day party in the February. The whole class sat enthralled by the magician - except for J who was crawling up and down a sunbeam on the floor and toatally ignoring the others.

[OPooh]

At playgroup he used to be far different than the other children. Finally nursery said they thought he had autism and he should be refered to the doctor.

[elaine1]

i always had an inkling - he was too quiet as a baby, he never babbled at all.

[Kathryn]

(I was all ready to post this late last night and then the forum crashed. ) A very interesting thread - I've found something to identify with in just about everyone's post.

 

My daughter seemed at odds with the world from the minute she emerged - one of my earliest memories is of taking her to a baby and toddler group at 3 weeks old and she screamed the minute we walked in to the noisy environment.

 

She never showed any desire to move on to the next stage of development - I was still bottlefeeding her at the age of 18 months, holding her in my arms.

 

She would never interact with anyone at toddler groups although she would play with the toys if I encouraged her. If anyone encroached on her space there would be a major tantrum. She was happiest looking at the books in a quiet corner - with me.

 

She was very unadventurous physically and did not have the drive children have to explore. I took her to the National Maritime museum in Greenwich at the age of 4. Outside they had a big climbing frame thing in the shape of a ship. Having done the educational bit I took her to it, thinking she could let off a bit of steam. She looked at all the children playing happily on it and turned to me, puzzled. "What am I supposed to do here?" she said.

 

She only got her dx at 15, but I remember the first time I used the word "autistic" to describe her behaviour - and it was a joke (being a graduate of the Rainman school of ASD awareness at the time ). At the age of 6 she used to go to a drama class, run by a man who banged a tambourine when he wanted the children's attention. I peeked through the door one day and saw all the children participating in some role play - except for one - mine - who was running up and down one end of the room, her hands over her ears, totally disengaged from what was going on. Later on I said to her dad: "If I didn't know better, I'd think she was autistic".

 

And we both laughed and I forgot about the comment until recently. Looking back now, all the pieces seem to fit so obviously - how could we have not seen the pattern earlier?

[smallworld]

I'll stick to describing the one dx child ( the other two B+G, both have features that had pre-warned me )

At 18 months we went back on holiday to portugal almost a year after our last time there, perhaps being back in the same place made me realise that my son could no longer say 'ma-ma' and was making no intelligible words at all and had lost 'NO' too. I kept raising my concerns with the HV but got the usual 'he's a boy !' comments.

he started playgroup at 2 and a half and spent the whole time opening and closing the safety gates and turning the lights on and off (biggg alarm bells ringing ), but happily played alongside other kids being the youngest of three.

HV wanted to refer to speech therapy but I stupidly turned it down ( been down that route with elder son to no avail ) and asked to be referred to CDC, they wrongly referred us to a parenting class for young mothers struggling to cope ( I was 38 for g*** sake !) in the meantime his repetitive behaviour escalated and I just gave in thinking a) he'll start to talk like his brother did, and his behaviour will improve and if he doesn't, then

nursery will not cope, and then we'll get help

He started nursery in sept. and had an emergency funded 1:1 by october.

The HV disappeared shortly afterwards.

The moral of this story is, don't be fobbed off by the so-called professionals like I was, we lost 2 years of help, and I really regret not listening to my own instincts.

 

wac

[Kathryn]

Waccoe,

 

What bothers me is that I didn't appear to HAVE any instincts - at least none strong enough to prompt me to seek help earlier on. I think I had a real complex about my parenting skills, especially at the preschool stage - and I tended to blame myself for my daughter's increasingly "different" behaviour.

 

K

[Zemanski]

we've all been there I think; I remember thinking at mums and toddlers (which I helped run and was a tiny group - lived in a remote village) that he wasn't getting enough contact with other children and spent the next couple of years making sure he saw other kids daily (went to 4 toddler groups a week!)

 

didn't work!

 

he just did his own thing regardless but not in any difficult way and he liked adults so everyone thought he was just lovely

 

at three his grandad asked us if he might be autistic and we just laughd it off - of course not, he's too interactive (with adults only) and he makes eye contact.

 

autism wasn't mentioned again till he was 8

 

Zemanski

[Jacqs]

Ewan was the perfect baby in my eyes, he slept constantly and when he was awake he was very content and happy. People used to stop me in the street to comment on him sitting in his buggy smiling out at them.

 

He missed all the milestones but I put it down to him being premature, I thought that was why he was always a few months behind what he should have been doing. I was a bit concerned when he didn't walk but at 16 months he got up and walked down the length of the hall, not the 2 faltering steps that kids normally take when starting to walk. We laughed at the time and thought oh my goodness he has been able to walk and has just not bothered doing it.

 

It was at his 2 year assesment that my health visitor pointed out that something wasn't right, she spotted it straight away and moved on it getting all the right people involved. Between the ages of 2 and 3 my happy little boy turned into a different child, he tantrumed for hours, banging his head on the floor and stuff, nothing I did would calm him down.

 

He did start to speak when he was 9 months old but then he just stopped and went back to gurgling sounds. At 4 years of age my son still has very little speech, he can say the words but has no understanding of what they mean or when to use them. He is back to being the happy wee boy that he was before and very rarely has meltdowns, even when he does they don't last any longer than a NT childs tantrums.

 

He's a great wee mimic who can copy any sound or accent he hears very accurately, he has very little imagination but loves nothing better than playing with other kids. He loves parties and noise, on the whole I would say he is a very sociable little boy but he just does not have the language to initiate play with other children. He has his little quirks and obsessions but nothing major, he pretty much defies most of what I have read about autism but he was diagnosed with highly functioning autism in Dec.05.

 

Don't get me wrong though to read this it sounds like I don't think he is autistic, but I know for sure that he is there are lots of other things I didn't mention that when I look back now should have sounded alarm bells for me, but I just thought he was a happy, contented, lazy little boy.

[Guest hallyscomet]

Hi,

 

B was the perfect baby , however through the day he was crying constantly from 6 - 9 months. He was very inattentive of his toys flit from one thing to the next from 15 months - 2 years old. At the age of two we moved to Melbourne three months after he presented with an Epileptic type and was scaring me as his eyes went really spacy had no eye contact with me and when I talked to him he didnt even notice me, the hospital admitted him and observed him for a week none of these episodes occured again that week, they did EEGs then ordered several tests

 

We moved back to Sydney six months at Preschool they advised me that they wanted the Education support service to do an assessment on him. After this they took me aside and said to me I want you to just observe him when he plays. She said, see how he turns away when the other children come up to him, and if they talk to him see how he looks everywhere but at them and turns his back to them so they stop playing with him as they think he doesn't like them. Whenever we asked him a one to one question he was always unable to respond with an appropriate answer, his reply was something that he may have been looking at instead.

 

As he got older they advised me at 5 they don't think he will make it into mainstream school, and were interested in him staying at Preschool so they could continue to assess and observe him. In the meantime, they suggested I go along to a support group for kids like him, but at this stage no-one in two years of assessments had given him a diagnosis of what it was he had, I had no idea. When I went to the support group I remember I was talking to another mum there, she was telling me all about her child and I thought "at last another mum who is experiencing the same things as me", she was describing B to a tee. Then she told me her child was autistic, well, I had no idea, this was the first time I received the truth about my son. You could have picked me up off the floor, I was gobsmacked

 

From their I found this wonderful network of special needs teachers and Specialists etc forming around me like clockwork, teaching me and giving therapy to my boy that the next 5 years became a sea of therapy and medication and assessment after assessment.

 

Well, my beautiful boy is now 18. I today love my boy as he is and each day is a new day. I think I learned somewhere I have to tell myself even though he is 18, in some area of his development, I have to tell myself that he has the maturity or development of a 12 year old, but on other days a good day an 18 year old. I am learning to love him anyway he comes <'> <'>

 

 

Regards

Hailey

Edited January 24, 2006 by hallyscomet

[microsoft_admin]

do you mean linkings i thought he was a president