My litte child has Autism...

hi there,

Is there any other parent out there (I know there must be!) with a child with Aspergers Syndrome or any 'level' of Autism?

I have always known our child was different....but did not know exactly why and often he did amazing things, way beyond other children for his age. However, he finds it hard to play with other children, is sensitive to loud noises and does not yet have a converstation with me, despite his vocab being very wide and varied. He is placid - always been an easy baby, sleeps well, eats heaps, tall and gorgeous.

We are in the LONG process of assessment before he goes to preschool...

Is there anyone else out there who knows what I mean?

Hi runnermum

Your little boy sounds gorgeous... you paint a lovely picture of him.

Although neither of my kids has Aspergers, my daughter's friends from her SEDC (special ed developmental centre) have various "levels" of Autism. My daughter has a speech delay, and attends the centre two half days a week for therapy.

She has gone through a lot of assessment in the past two years, and for her, there's no simple answer. But the early intervention and therapy has been a God-send for us. She is the opposite of your little one in terms of words and vocab... at 2 yrs she had no words, and by 3 she only had some. Now at 4 and a half, she has caught up to the vocab of a 3 and a half year old, so I'm really proud of her effort so far.

I know there are probably other parents on these boards whose child/ren do have ASD. i hope they come and share their stories.

Best of luck with the assessment process.

Hi Runnermum!

My son isn't Autistic but I have worked with Autistic children for many years, one thing I must say to you is that early intervention is VITAL in preparing them for school and developing the areas that are behind.

I haven't worked with young children onlyschool aged, and I can say that having discussed wth many parents the ones who had loads of early intervention have exclled all expectations and these are children on the other end of the Autisic spectrum (lower functioning)

If you have any questions about my expereinces in working with families I'd be more than happy to answer them..

Best of luck in the assessment system..

thank you all for replying.........so comforting...your comments and experiences with your own children make me realise I am not alone.

We are off to the paediatrition tomorrow...I don't expect it will be a very long appointement (despite being rang yesterday and told it will be $150).... and I have done quite a bit of research on the internet and have a sense of what she (the doctor) may ask or look for in my son.

For here I suppose it is speech therapy, physio etc.

Jillian - My son is 3 next month. He can put words into sentences quite easily, but it is USUALLY about his favourite topics or it is a question if he wants something like food or a toy or to go somewhere. If I ask him how his morning was at cheche, he is not normally able to tell me, however sometimes says 'Did you (meaning him) play outside?'

How are you going with toliet training Jillian? MY son is great somedays and asks to go on to the potty but other times/days he just goes right ahead and does his business in his underpants ....so I am not confident about taking him shopping/friends houses etc....but he is slowly getting there so I am not really too worried and realise it will take longer for him than other boys his age.

I am noticing that my son is getting more frustrated lately...he is a very placid boy normally. In what way did Lachlan get frustrated...by what?

what is the name of the Music program you take him to?

Mistyfying ... thank you for your kind words... Do you have 2 children? Is your daughter your first or second? what kind of things does this centre do to help your daughter?

yes, I hope to hear from other parents too........!!

i forgot to say a big thank you also to Katanya !! I may just have questions for you soon.......

thank godness there are people like you in the world... keep up the valuable and wonderful work you do...

No problem :) I just wanted to say to you that I LOVE working with Autistic children, every child is so differenet and finding out what makes them tick and working through the challenges with them is extremely rewarding..

However I do not ever profess to know what it is like to have a child witha disability, my own child has health issue but these so far haven't affected his development..just make sure you gain plenty of support because from what I have seen it can be a challenging road..

I have a friend (who's son used to be my client) who recomended that i train as an in home assessment peson(to assist with startegies in home for families) with Autism Qld, I am actually thinking of looking into this in future (right now I have my plate full with my own child :) ) so perhaps I can help you online with this then..

I do know as a parent when your child is being tested for something it is the unknown that can be the scarest part, when you ahve a diagnosis and know what to expect a little more that can be incrediably reassuring..anyhow think of you :D

Yes I have two kids. My daughter Gabrielle is my first, and I have a soon-to-be 3 year old son called Zeke.

The Centre provides individualised educational programs for the kids, each developed to meet their own needs.

Gabrielle's main need, of course, is speech. So they do a lot of activities with her at the moment focussed on simple sentence formation (singing, reading, story-telling, flash cards, games, one-on-one interaction etc)

She also has some developmental delays (fairly minor) with gross motor skills and fine motor skills. So they incorporate some physiotherapy and occupational therapy into her program too. Often you'll find with speech that an improvement in gross motor and fine motor skills helps their processing, which in turn helps them to "organise" their speech and get what's in their head out through their mouth in the right sequence.

Gabrielle is also eligible to receive speech therapy via a pathologist with Disability Services Queensland, a State Dept here in Qld. I don't know where you live, but you may have something similar where you live?

Have you looked into whether or not you're eligible for a Carer's allowance or payment from Centrelink? That certainly helps with the extra time and cost involved with providing therapy for a child.

We all went to the doctor at the royal children's hospital yesterday. The specialist was lovely and both my husband and I felt comforable with her - the questions she asked, the way she listen and the insights she had....so that is a good start.

She believes our son lies somewhere on the Autism spectrum, but on the mild side....he will need some speech therapy and help with his gross motor skills, but ultimately we will help him to learn these, where as other children....well, it just comes naturally.

Lucky I am a primary school teacher, so the things I had already been doing in the last 3 years has helped alot....I was told this by her over and over so this is nice to know. I have to teach our son to make eye contact more when people are talking to him and when he is talking to us and friends and I have to continue to help him understand non-verbal cues and other social aspects of language which we all take for granted.

She said we are lucky however as he is flexible in his routine and does not mind change (we have recently been though a big change in living in a foreign country). And he can generalise, and has SOME basic imagination and plays simple imagintive games which is a good start.

still, is a different road to the one I thought I would be on, but it will be a rewarding one - he is different yes, but always my special little boy, perhaps even more special now.

thanks for listening !

I am so gald you have found s supportive specailist! that is the first step into anything like this..

As for his intervention program, if you have concerns or want more help or information, never feel afraid to put your hand up for it because there are heaps of resources avaliable you just need to access them..I would urge you to contact the Autism Association in your area as soon as possible..

I know this is all new to you, but it sounds like you are heading in the right direction, trying to find others with children with ASD is very important, as sometimes Autism is like a hidden disability..alot of community memebers have no understand why your child is non verbal or does things differently and may not give them the patience they need. I've had people whisper behind my back while I am with a client throwing a tantrum over something they didn't understand say "that child needs a good smack" where as some with a more visable disability gets more understanding..

Anyhow..let us know his developments!

My XP (and baby's dad) has a 7 1/2 year old son who has been diagnosed with ASD. He also has absence seizure epilepsy and has been diagnosed in the past with ADHD (although this diagnosis is being reviewed since his ASD determination).

Mr7.5 also has a brilliant vocab but is only able to hold conversations (or detailed conversations) on topics that are of interest to him. He often repeats nonsence phrases, especially at inappropriate times. He has difficulty following verbal direction. He enjoys other children and would like to play with them but does not interpret body language or social situations acurately and therefor is a loner. He has no hand-eye co-ordination. He has poor writing/drawing skilss (all shapes look like cirlces). behaviourly we have many issues, a lot of which I can attribute to poor parenting (unfortunately from both sides!... much easier to give in to tantrums apparently than try to correct a problem or enforce a rule :-s ). Mr7.5 can not use cutlery to feed himself, he can not wipe his own bottome after the toilet, his response to any situation he does not understand or feels like he is not getting his own way is physically violent and verbally colourful.... the list goes on and on... However as stated a lot of his problems are made worse by 2 parents who are not able to accept his conditions or adjust their lives to accomodate and help him.

He was kept back in kindergarten and only began Prep this year. He will be having an intergration aid next year. This year he has attenended a few differnt therapy pograms. Of them the occupational therapy and the speech pathology have been the most beneficial. Speech Pathology is not like speech therapy as it also deals with memory recall, and interpretation of how language is used.

I don't mean to scare you or anything as poor mr7.5 has a mother who would rather be at the pub with her friends or in the laundry "smoking the big pipe" (as per mr7.5) and is happy that her son has problems because she gets more money from the government (a quote from her). His father is stil in denial that his son has a problem and is really only just starting to accept it... dad thinks that mr7.5 is just lazy. Both parents give in to the tantrums and violent outburst. You do not sound like either of these parents and in all probability your beautiful child is going to have every advantage available has you are dealing with his problems now.

For some possitive feed back. My 20yr sister has high functioning autism which is centred around a language and memory problem. Socially you would not know and just (if anything) think she was a bit imature. She manages to work part time and communte to work independantly on public transport. She does have some literacy problems. She can converse with anyone on a very wide range of topics. She does have some obsessive tendencies but is a beautiful, well balanced person who has a place in society that is hers. She manages her own money. she is aware that she can not have a drivers licence as there are too many things to concentrate on and she gets too confused (this is a decission she came to her self). With all her problems regarding literacy, etc I will state that if I had to leave my week old child in someone elses unsupervised care for any period of time she would probably be the first person I would ask. She attended main stream primary school but a specialist secondary school. The biggest asset to her development was that my parents and extended family always treated her the same way as every other member was treated... she was never special or treated as such, she was just herself. Therapy wise the most beneficial thing for her was speech pathology.

I have not had any experiance with this, but my partner who is a case manager in out of home care works with a child with Aspergers. Should get him to pop in for you

Please do Candice. I would love any advice or help he could give and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

hey kerry, my dp gave me a new web site for the syndrome, if you would like the link just pm me

hi there everyone ...thanks for all your posts.

Kerry...your story about this boy is sad. There is so much that can be done to help him. I feel that the best support our son can get is from US...his parents who love him so much, perhaps even more so now that we know what is different about him.

We took our son to the speech pathologist last week. It was again a positive experience. The pathologist took her time to make our son comfortable and talk casually to him at first...our little boy is quite sociable so no problems really. She did an assessment on him in the 3 areas of language - the first I cannot remember, expressive language and pramatics. He did very well actually and answered questions and showed her things I thought he could not do. She told us that it looks to her as High functioning Autism or something similar.... BUT to remember how lucky we are to have a little boy who does NOT mind change, and has a sense of humor, and has very little behaviour problems....

He does get frustrated quite a bit when he cannot work something out on his own (like putting a music tape in) and we also have to give some warning to when dinner is, bath time etc.... as he does not like to be interupted when playing with his special toys.... but really, this is fair enough !!! I don't like being told come straight away when in the middle of something interesting either !!

He is also going great in the toliet training department ! He loves to do wees on the loo at home and elsewhere too (cheche, others houses etc) but poos....well, still a bit worried about that on the loo, he is...but i know it will just be a matter of time.. It is great to be washing undies rather than throwing out nappies !!

I often remind myself what is is like to be 3... yes,

he just celebrated his 3rd birthday !

we are also finding nightmares are occuring more...I think this is an age related thing however, toddlers this age cannot understand between reality and fantasty/dreams etc.

better stop here...

Hello
My almost 4 year old has been diagnoised with High functioning Autisum. I live in the shepparton area and the support from Human services and the hospital here has been fantastic. Wilhelm has had an educational advisor who helped him to sit at a table and listen. He has started speech therapy. not the normal a e i o u type. no the 'the boy is eatting an apple' whilst pointing at a picture of a boy eating an apple. I have made flash cards for him along these lines and I find they have helped. I have also made a booklet about him, so when he starts 3 year old playgroup next year, the teachers will understand his noises and actions. and they will also know what to do. If you want a copy of this, just let me know and I'll email it to you. I gave Wilhelms grandparents and aunty and uncles a copy and now they finally bloody understand him. I get very defensive when I go shopping and get "ah if someone tired' or ' does someone need a nap'. I usually snap and go "NO someone just has to get out of his face. he has autisum and he doesnt like you staring at him"
If you need any info just let me know and i'll be happy to pass any one to you.
Life does get easier, just remember your not a bad parent. The opposite, your wonderful as you have been given a beautiful and special guy to have in your life. He will make you see the world in many different shades of colours.

O:) Keep smiling

from Maz

:wave: Nikolaus 5


:confetti: Wilhelm 3

Hi everyone who has been watching and replying to this thread...

well, it has been a few months and I just read over what I wrote about my beautiful son...wow......how far he has come in these months...

His imagination has grown so much - he plays with puppets, makes voices for them, builds and paints with imagination and much thought. His pragmatics (social language) has improved SO much.....he has conversations with me all the time and with others, not only about his favourite topics (any type of fan or clock, helicopters, other instruments that 'go around' ) but also talks about stories in books, questions about people he sees or people he would like to see ! He has recently started to ask 'why?' quite a lot.......fantastic!

His gross motor still needs weekly help from an OT. He is very nervous about climbing and cannot ride a bike yet (he is 3 and half). He goes to a main stream preschool and loves it, and goes to swimming lessons, speech therapy once a fortnight, and a special early intervention centre once a week also.......yes, it is FULL on, but everyone is dedicated to making our little boy more capable, confident and skillful. His Dad spent the weekend building special equipment for him in the backyard...thanks Dad.

Of course we always worry for his future...will he be able to look after himself when he is an adult? WE also worry about whether our second child (not yet concieved but still hoping to have another) will have ASD also...it is a risk we will take I suppose.

We are VERY lucky I know. Support IS EVERYTHING. After watching the INSIGHT program last week, I realised this once again. This is a life long condition, but early intervention IS really working and our little boy is thriving. Recently we went on a 9 day South Pacific Cruise together.....it was a test of patience at times, but how many other parents of children with ASD could/would do this? The hardest part is watching other passengers wonder why our son is SOOOO fasinated with the propellors on the tenders (boats that took us to shore) and how a 3 year old knows what a anamometer and radar is - not sure if I even spelt this right - "it measures wind speed mummy" and " a radar tells the cruise ship if there are other boats in the area"...

My friend thinks he will be an aeronautical engineer or similar !

Thanks for listening and I would love to hear others stories about ASD.

he sounds like a wonderful little boy and I am glad he is getting the help he needs. You are a fantastic mother.
I don't have a child with a disability, but I have worked with children with autism and developmental delay and I loved it. It makes every laugh, every smile more worth it.
These children are so precious and I bet they know how lucky they are to have mothers and family like you, even if they can't express it as well as they'd like. Keep it up girls, you are all doing an amazing job! And I thank you. It takes a special person to raise a special child....

Hi runnermum,

We have a support thread for Developmental Delays in this forum. My daughter is also autistic.

thanks Natalie - where exactly is this thread....? I cannot find it.

How old is your daughter? thanks for writing.

the developmental delay thread is here.

Thanks Chloe, I dont know how to do that :)

hi there mums/dads of Aspergers/Autism children,
we are thinking of moving to south east queensland (gold coast hinterland) and thought I may post to see if anyone can tell me of their experiences with primary schools - particularly of course with children with special needs like my son (Aspergers). I have heard that Queensland has more support within school years for children like my son than many other states/territories. Victoria where we currently like has been great for early intervention - school, another story.
thanks anyone who may have experiences or information.

Where abouts in Vic are you?

There are 2 brilliant schools designed especially for Autism/ASD/Asperger kids in the Melb suburbs but I would agree with you that integration support in mainstream schools can be a bit limitied and even non-existant.

My X's son has a full time integration aid in a mainstream school that he shares with another aspie boy. They also both have weekly group speach pathology session and fortnightly one on one SP sesions and child psychology session. His school is in Hoppers Crossing and is a semi private (a state school with a fee system)