Totally confused and worried

[worried_daddy]

I need advice, my son is 2, he does not point or say any words other than hi and bye or occasionally counting with me 1,2,3 as we walk up the stairs. He does not talk in sentences nor does he call us mommy and daddy. He responds to his name only after numerous attempts but sometimes on the first try. He is very extremely hyper active,  persistent and throws huge tantrums when we prevent him from doing what he wants or wakes up in the morning or after naps in an uncontrollable fit. He usually calms down if we put on one of his fav tv shows.

We have tried to teach him where our eyes mouth and nose are but he can't seem to concentrate or it just does not interest him. When there is music he likes playing he will dance on his tip toes although never walks on them. When he is excited he occasionally will flap his arms or shake his head from side to side with a big smile. He falls or trips and hardly gives it a second thought even when it looks like it should have hurt. Once he was running around with other children a while back and collided heads with another kid. My son rubbed his head a little looked at the other kid and off he went again. The other child cried so much I thought he was dying...

I've read so much on ASD that I think I am more confused than ever. My son actively comes to get me to play with him, loves to be chased or to chase. He wants attention and to be with other people but can play alone also. He will look at us straight in the eyes and start talking to us in his own babble. He'll pause and wait for an answer from us and then continue babbling after we stop.

He pretends to talk on the phone allot. His mom works from home and is often on the phone. I guess this is where hi picked it up from. He will talk on his phone for a while and then say "OK.. Bye" as clear as you and I and proceed to put the phone down as if hanging it up. If we are watching something on tv and he doesn't like it he will look at us and hand us the remote as a way of telling us change the channel. He loves to jump in the couch, stare at him self in the mirror and talk in front of it, saying hello and bye. He loves to tickle us and blow bubbles on our stomachs. He will hide in the kitchen cabinet and will open the door and look at us with a huge open mouth smile and big bright eyes.

Every time someone comes to visit us he receives them happily and says hello and then talks to them in his own language. He also says bye to them and gives them kisses.

He seems to get mad every time something is not working right for him, like trying to open something, he will trough stuff out and have a tantrum.

When we tell him no severely he slaps himself in the face and cries, lately instead of slapping he is covering his ears.

As you can read, you are probably as confused as we are, Our son has a lot of the spectrum signs but also signs of a very normal child with just some behavior issues...

My wife and I are trying to find answers our pediatrician tells us not to worry and perhaps he just needs a speech therapist. But the pediatrician only sees him once every one or two months.

We now have an appointment to have his hearing verified. I'm pretty sure there is nothing wrong with his hearing since he will run over to the tv as soon as he hears something interesting to him. We have also been put on a waiting list at the autism centre in our area but there is a 9 month waiting list. I can't wait that long...

If anybody has comments or thoughts about my son please do so, we would really appreciate it.

[888mom]

I noticed you live in Montreal from your profile, so I'm not sure if you have early intervention services provided for free or reduced rates.  If you do, try to take advantage of it.  Even if your son is not autistic, just being a late talker can create lots of frustrations for a child.  Sign language is a handy bridge to help communication issues.

Our daughter has been in therapy for 6 months, and she has made dramatic improvements.  At 24 months, she didn't point, didn't make eye contact, didn't respond to her name at all, didn't understand anything you said to her, flapped her arms all the time, walked on her tiptoes, would throw tantrums all the time because she couldn't communicate or understand us either, sometimes through tantrums due to sensory issues and still does but they are less, and well, there were lots of other things too.  Good news is that with therapy, at 30 months old, she is now learning how to point.  She isn't great at it, but she's starting to learn the concept.  Her eye contact is much improved.  It's not perfect, but she looks at people in the eyes when you talk to her and play with her.  She's also interested in other kids now instead  of in the corner by herself all the time (though she still has problems interacting).  She responds to her name half the time now, and will respond eventually the other half of the time.  She understands a lot more of what we say to her.  And with sign language, she can communicate a lot of things.  She is learning how to speak, but her pronounciation is very poor that we don't understand her  most of the time.  She replaces consonants for other consonants and only says half the word, but it's great progress from saying nothing 6 months ago.  She didn't even babble 6 months ago.  We are not sure if our daughter is autistic (the developmental pediatrician wants to wait a few years to see where her progress will be like).  But she definitely has autistic tendencies which need therapy and continued therapy and work.  

Types of therapy we have used are speech, developmental, and occupational.  There is a lot of overlap between our 3 therapists that probably we don't need all 3 (in the U.S. it is federally subsidized so I'm not worried about any of the cost).  The  most important things we have learned with our daughter are to teach her sign language.  If you can't get a therapist, learn on your own.  There are a lot of books out there about baby sign language.  The basic signs our daughter has learned and uses every day are more, eat, milk, eat, drink, open, close, change me, please, and thank you.  Other signs she has learned and uses are colors, animals, and things to do with toys and stuff she interacts with on a daily basis.  We started on 2 signs first...  more and milk are really handy.  Eat is another good one.  You really have to work on 1 or 2 at a time, and wait a week or two before introducing another one.  And you have to use the sign at every opportunity you can.  

Another thing in therapy that has worked for our daughter is sensory integration.  That you will need a therapist to help you with to figure out what kind of sensory diet your son needs.  You might be able to read up on it in books, but that stuff is kind of confusing to figure out.  We use a joint compression technique with our daughter, about once every 3 to 4 hours (or more often if necessary).  That technique also helps kids with ADHD and other disorders.  We also do a brushing technique as well, but we have been doign that less and less now.  The joint compressions really work.  Plus we find that if our daughter can't sit still, we have to fulfill her sensory cravings before she will.  Bouncing her on a ball, picking her up and swinging her, jumping up and down, swinging her in a blanket.  Some kids like to be rolled up in a blanket but our daughter hated that one.  

Speech therapy has also helped immensely.  Things our therapist has done is through play... like when you play with your child, pick one word or a 2 to 3 word phrase and repeat it over and over while you do the activity.  For example, if you stack blocks, each time you stack a block on top of the other, say "on top" each time.  if a ball is rolling down a little ramp you could say "ball.  ball down."  Keep your words short and simple.  And repeat them often.  A way to work on eye contact is to hold toys up to your face.  Sometimes you can take your child's hand and put it  up to your face and they generally look at you to see what you're doing.  And you can also teach sign language with play.  Words like open and more.  If you play and then stop the activity, you can say "more?" and do the sign language for more and help them do the sign by taking their hands to help them do it.  It really does take awhile for children to catch the hang of sign language, but once they do they realize that it is quite empowering.  Giving them lots of opportunities to use the sign language or just speak is sometimes hard to remember.  I often have to tell my daughter "use your words to tell me"  or "use your hands to tell me" so she'll stop whining.   She loves to whine, but that has also decreased a lot.  Sometimes she forgets but with a gentle reminder, she tries to communicate.  SOmetimes I ask her to point.  That is still a hard concept for her to grasp. The therapist worked on pointing first with books.  We had to teach her how to isolate her index finger and point at things.  Basically we made her point for months and months.  And we demonstrated pointing.  She's only now starting to understand this concept.  For most kids, I think they get pointing around 12 to 15 months without all the demonstration.  

Anyways, I know I've said a lot... Hang in there.  Try to get as many services as you can.  I know they can get pricey if they aren't government subsidized.  Even in the U.S., you have to fight to get what you are entitled to.  Our pediatrician seemed to think we should just wait, but I knew there was a 0 to 3 program, and did not want to wait.  If I was really smart, I would have begged for it at our daughter's 18 months visit.  But, well, anyways, I hope you have something, and if not, try to read up on stuff and try things on your own.  I know it's difficult.  But, it's worth it.

[Sally44]

I agree totally with 888mom.
Most parents start to have concerns around the age of 2 onwards.  But it takes along time for you to see where, if at all, your child fits on the spectrum.  My son is now 7 and I have a pretty good idea of where his difficulties are.  Every child will be different and will have different parts of the autistic spectrum that he has difficulties with and others he is very good with.
We have also used Speech/language therapy, still waiting for Occupational Therapy (very important!!!).  We have also used Play Therapy (by a therapist who has knowledge of and works with children on the spectrum).  My son found PT useful because it helped him gain confidence in social interactions and helped him be more trusting of letting other people take the lead, instead of only wanting to play on his terms.  It is not true that autistic children do not have emotions, empathy, imaginative play.  They do, but sometimes we don't recognise how they are demonstrating it.  But the more you understand the more you will tune into your child and their behaviour will make sense to you because you will recognise what the barrier/difficulty is for your child.  Many (if not all) of the confusing behaviour we see is down to sensory difficulties.  For example my son is very sensitive to touch so he gets anxious/stressed at going to the hairdressers (once he got so upset we had to leave with half a haircut!).  But if it hurts him to touch his hair/head/nails/feet etc then his response to touch is a 'normal' reaction to him.  Afterall would you sit still if something was hurting you?  At the other extreme my son can hurt himself and not feel a thing if, for example, he is running around.  I have found that children on the autistic spectrum tend to work through one sense at a time.  So, for example, when they are looking they may lose the sense of hearing and touch (which is why they appear deaf when they are not).  But if you do an internet search for 'sensory differences in autism and aspergers' you will find alot of information, but the sooner an OT gets involved the better.  Because there are such sensory differences from child to child you need to be aware of avoidance behaviours and don't force anything on them.  If they are distressed or upset there is a reason for it even if you can't see what it is.
Whatever the outcome your child will grow, develop, reach goals etc.  

[MJIthewriter]

I agree with you on the feelings and empathy mater. For a while tended to beive I didn't feel empathy, but upon recent reflecting I'm beginning to realize I do feel empathy, just not the emotional aspect of it as much.

My steps to feeling empathy:
1. Make up a detailed portrayal of the scene in my head. Sometimes I must ask seemingly irrelevant questions to obtain this.

2. Search my mind for a comparable emotion. If the upset person is talking to me being fired from their job, then I go back to memories of being rejected at school or forced to sit out.

3. Think about how I felt those times. Could the person talking be feeling something like this?

4. Now with that in my mind I can cognitively figure out what you are feeling and offer questions: I can say, "I'm sorry to hear you lost your job. What happened?"

I wrote that as part of a reply to a post on another fourm. The parent was upset because their child seemed to lack empathy to them.