Could my child be autistic?

[CJL111]

Hi all, I have suspected for a few years that my son may be autistic, he is 9. I have spoken to school, who say they have never seen any issues, which makes it difficult to have him assessed in any way. My question is, what sort of behaviour is normal at this age? He behaves pretty well at home, but we are beginning to see some strange behaviour with regards to friends and being in crowded places. Is it normal at this age for boys to fall out with each other? What kind of interests do your 9 year old boys have? He also has a history of disliking haircuts, (he is better now he is older) being a picky eater etc. Thanks for any advice.

The big differences I would say with autism aged 9 in my experience are

1. Social communication i.e. you notice he doesn’t interact with peers or other people in a “typical” way without being “taught” things that other kids seem to just get.

2. Sensory issues he responds differently to many sensory experiences, visual, auditory, pressure sensations, loads of other sensory stuff, food etc

3. sometimes limited interests or special interest dinosaurs Pokémon anything that could interest any another person

4. sometimes lack of social imagination

5. rules, rules, rules - loves order and routine to reduce anxiety in a very confusing world.

Yeah he literally just turned 9, could be me over googling. Something happens and my mind goes into overdrive

What friendship difficulties does he have, what do they fall out about?
DS can't have play dates because he would either get so over excited he'd do risky things or he would just go off and do his favourite activity eg start a video game with one of his online friends and ignore the friend who was there.

Also would he ask you a question or ask for more information on a subject that is of interest to you? For example if I said oh I went on a brilliant holiday 5 years ago DS wouldn't say anything, or he might say 'oh'.

School don't notice anything up with him either 🤷‍♀️

Don’t think it was a massive fallout, I’m probably overreacting. He has his friend round at our house or he is at his house nearly everyday, and they have sleepovers.

And yeah, if I tell him about something that has happened to me during the day, he will ask more about it

The traits they will look for are social/communication and repetitive or restrictive interests - children with other developmental issues or none can have sensory issues, so that's not diagnostic.
There are various parent checklists out there e.g. CHAT. My DS falls squarely in the no-concern range despite having quite a lot of sensory issues (he has ADHD but his social issues are due to finding it hard to self regulate rather than to not knowing what he should be doing IYSWIM and he doesn't have enough of an attention span to have repetitive interests!)

The repetitive interest thing is really obvious with my DS (who is 10 and was diagnosed at 7). He’s very outgoing and articulate so initially appears to have reasonable social skills, but once he gets started on a pet subject (Lego, engineering, llamas(!)) he’ll reel off facts with no regard for whether the other person is actually interested or even listening. Most of his peers are starting to outgrow Lego now and are moving on to gaming, but DS is still as obsessed as when he was 4, and spends most of his spare time building. He never seems to get bored with it.

Thanks for all your replies ladies, I will be getting in touch with the school again.

He’s also never really been a Lego boy, played a little bit but has most definitely moved onto gaming.

My 10 year son is autistic. He loves cuddles and is very affectionate and thoughtful.

He doesn't like it when plans change and he isn't told in advance about it.
He has extreme anxiety and missed 3 years of school because of this.
He threatens to kill himself almost daily but calms down faster than he used to.
The smallest of things can upset him and this causes him to swear and occasionally become violent.

He has a obsession with roblox and YouTube and spends hours on these things.
He will only eat beige food and any sign of a vegetable will cause him to run off.
He is my only child so I don't know what it's like to have a NT child.
We are now in a special needs hub in a mainstream school and he has an EHCP.
Best of luck, if you have the money I would advise a private assessment.

@southern82 can I ask what is good and what you'd avoid about the SEN hub? That's what I'm hoping we can get for DS and if we have a choice I'd like to know what to look out for.

Just to put over a school view point. It’s very hard for us to refer if we are not seeing the traits in school (yes, masking but that does mean that we see it). I know that when we refer the referrals are often not taken on unless we can document the traits we see in school. I say to parents that it’s not because we don’t care or we are being purposefully obstructive, it’s that we can’t report on something we don’t see. On the occasions I’ve written referrals in terms of “Xs parent reports that when X returns home from school they struggle to regulate and observe X Y Z behaviours. The impact of this is A B and C”. The referral still comes back that there’s not enough evidence for them to join (the ridiculously long) waiting list to be seen. In school we can look at ways to ease hidden anxieties if they can be identified, teach regulation activities or anything else that may support them. We can also look at the way that activities and instructions are delivered, provide visual prompts and social support. Obviously this would need to be tailored to the child as these may not be appropriate.

@Punxsutawney, I’m now retired but do some voluntary advocacy. I would love to know which health authority is not allowing GP referral as this is a blocking measure and needs to be tackled.

Your DS sounds perfectly neurotypical and showing no autistic traits from your description. Sounds like my 8 yo. Do you often have such anxious thoughts?

I have noticed that as I have gotten older, I have become a lot more anxious about things, and find myself saying what if all the time. I have 2 daughters who are a lot older so no experience of boys