autistic traits in my toddler

[hedders]

my daughter is 2.5 yrs is currently under speech therap.

she has delayed speech and repetetive speech, she also displays repetetive behaviour

e.g following the same pattern every day when i take my older one to school

behaving in a repeated pattern when family visit

she has diffculty with imagination play and prefers games like bubbles, books with flaps,

cause and effect games

she also has sensory issues clothes, food,and gets overstimulated just going into a shop, doesnt like her hair and teeth touched.

she is being referred to a paed, this is not really new to me beause my older daughter has simular difficulties and has co-ordintion delay and her paed, isint really interested she has lots of fears and doesnt like change of routine.

I feel a bit confused as to why they may be displaying autistic traits and why no one is that bothered

esp the school i find every day a struggle to cope with but no one wants to give me an answer.

any advice please?

[JenRose]

hedders, i agree with everything you have said, you have described my 2 year old daughter perfectly, she is awaiting an appointment with the CDC, her usual Paed has told us that he "has concerns".

 

My Older son has Aspergers as do i so i knew months ago that i thought that DD was the same.

 

My experience with CDC,paediatricians etc is that they adopt a "wait and see" approach but that if you persist enough (as i have with DD) then hopefully they will take notice.

 

I went through all this with my son 8 years ago and they werent worried/interested so i think its just usual practice, unfortunately they dont have to live with our children 24/7.

 

Please PM me if you would like to talk any further.

[Karen A]

Hi Hedders .Unfortunately some schools do not worry about what could be autistic traits unless behaviour becomes a significant issue or the child is a long way behind their peers.We only became aware that our Ds could have difficulties because his teacher last year was knowledgable.If you have concerns it is worth pushing for an assessment regardless of what others may think.If the paed does not have specialist knowledge and experience in ASD it would be worth asking for a referral to the professional/team in your area who are.General paeds may not pick ASD especially where difficulties are more subtle.It took us a school year to get a Dx-from reading of others experience that is a short time-so it is worth acting sooner rather than later.The wait and see aproach of some professionals is unhelpful especially since it is recognised that the sooner intervention is put in place for young children the better the chances are of significant progress.Hope that is useful.

Sorry I had not noticed you are new here so wellcome too.You will find lots of people here who have been in a similar situation.Regards.Karen

Edited September 5, 2006 by Karen A

[Bullet]

Ds1 was diagnosed with ASD at 2 years 8 months. I'll dig up the first post I did on here before he was assessed. We were very fortunate in that his health visitors also saw signs in him and spoke to one of the GPS who got him referred first to a paediatrician who then got him onto a multidisciplinary assessment.

There's been very little change in him since the post in January, apart from he has started smearing poo on occassions and has become a bit obsessed with numbers and counting. But he also is learning Makaton which is helping him a lot and he responds well to pictures.

Found it! I shopuld also say that although I thought he was understanding me on occassions it turned out he was just doing things that were part of his routine. He doesn't understand much unless it's one step instructions with gestures.

This was posted in January this year. Have a look and if some parts seem familiar to your dd you might want to speak again to your gp/paediatrician. I also forgot to say that he didn't - and still doesn't - check my reaction to things.

"Hello to everyone on this forum . I hope you don't mind me posting, as my son (who I am asking about) hasn't had a diagnosis, but he has been referred to a developmental centre as myself, my health visitors and our GP are all concerned about him. Basically, I would like to know whether it sounds as though he might be on the ASD spectrum to a significant degree.

He is two and a half and I've had concerns about him for a while. He did have glue ear, which I think was used to explain a lot of his behaviour but he has had grommits put in last May and - as I'll explain later - I know he can hear perfectly well now. I also suspect that before his glue ear was not that bad.

This is a list of what is voncerning me about him:

He has an excellent vocabulary (albeit very poor pronunciation) but it is all repetition and parrot fashion. He will remember phrases he's heard and repeat them back to you hours or days later. There is also immediate repetition as well. However, there is no spontaneous, off his own bat language. Eg he can repeat back to you lines from a story, but he won't say "cat" if he sees our cat. He has said a couple of spontaneous things in his lifetime and only one of those he was looking at me.

He has very poor eye contact and it's difficult to tell if he's listening or paying attention. I know he can understand me and does listen as sometimes I've said something and he's reacted in the right way.

He does not point at things, unless it's the Tellytubbies on the computer. Even then, he does not look at me (or anyone) to get a reaction. It's more as though he's pointing it for his own benefit.

If something unusual happens, he does not react, or look at others to see how they are reacting. Eg I have a nearly four month old baby as well and my older lad did not react at all at me holding the baby in the hospital. And on Christmas Day he completely ignored all the presents until we had opened them (did not wonder what all the boxes were) and had no comprehension it was a special day.

However, with his everyday routines he is fairly rigid. Eg in the morning if I change his brother's nappy after his he gets upset because we are not going down straight away for breakfast. However, he is fine about me paying attention to his brother first.

If he needs help with something, he will pull me over to what he wants and manipulate my hands. If I feign ignorance to try to get him to speak he will drop my hands, show me what he wants with his hands and then manipulate my hands again.

He is very good with peg puzzles and building blocks, but with his other toys he tends to concentrate on small, repetitive movements. Eg he likes to line up his toys, press buttons on them, watch wheels spin, touch his soft toys faces, but shows no "progressive" play. Eg he won't push his cars along unless you show him first and then he'll only do it a couple of times.

There's probably a load more, but I've probably exhausted you all

Edited September 5, 2006 by Bullet

[Suze]

Hi welcome, with some younger children it is a case of playing a waiting game, many pre-schoolers show autistic type behaviours , my youngest has many..........food problems, routine, obsessive interests , but I,m pretty sure he would,nt get a diagnosis of autism.My oldest was,nt dx till he was 7 and this was after diagnosises of dyslexia and dyspraxia.Very often it is a waiting game, I must say you are fortunate to get SALT, they seem to be a dying breed.Keep notes of behaviours that worry you , and use this forum , you,ll find lots of help and advice here.When you see the pead list all your concerns etc, you may find he is reluctant to give a dx till she is older as they may want to see how her development goes.The next few years before school will give a good indication.It,s good your in the loop with the right proffesssionals .........make sure they have experience of dx autism.Bye for now Suzex.

[Bullet]

When autism or aspergers is diagnosed, especially in children, it is not the odd behaviours that cause concern, but the absence of behaviours, what is generally known as the triad of impairments on the DSM IV criteria that the psychologists and other assessors look for. Ds1 was diagnosed not because he arranged his blocks into rectangles, or because he likes to spin himself around, but because he is unable to use language to communicate (he can't or won't even shout out "mummy" but he can count to twenty and repeat things back he's heard days before), his social interaction is very poor and he is quite rigid and set in his ways.

[shortie]

my daughter is 2.5 yrs is currently under speech therap.

she has delayed speech and repetetive speech, she also displays repetetive behaviour

e.g following the same pattern every day when i take my older one to school

behaving in a repeated pattern when family visit

she has diffculty with imagination play and prefers games like bubbles, books with flaps,

cause and effect games

she also has sensory issues clothes, food,and gets overstimulated just going into a shop, doesnt like her hair and teeth touched.

she is being referred to a paed, this is not really new to me beause my older daughter has simular difficulties and has co-ordintion delay and her paed, isint really interested she has lots of fears and doesnt like change of routine.

I feel a bit confused as to why they may be displaying autistic traits and why no one is that bothered

esp the school i find every day a struggle to cope with but no one wants to give me an answer.

any advice please?

 

Hi hedders! my daughter was also 2.5yrs when she was refered to pead!!i was lucky that she was seen very quickly and diagnosed exactly 6mths after being refered.she had all the same traits as your dd,its really important that they get the right support as early as possible so i would ask for an assesment when you see pead! we're all here to help,