Ds is 2.5 and is on the pathway to being diagnosed with asd, I also think he may be dyspraxic although I’m waiting on the results of blood tests to rule out genetic reasons before I broach this.
He is 2.5 and is completely non verbal, he used to be able to say banana but has now lost it, he also has very little comprehension, the only words I am sure he knows are ‘no’ and ‘juice’
He can feed himself finger foods but cannot use a spoon and so needs to be spoon fed anything slightly liquidy (soups/yogurt/cereal)
Getting through the day with him can be very hard. He is very strong and really too big to be lifted anywhere so everything takes 4 times as long as it should. Getting him into the car for example can genuinely take round 30 minutes
He is obviously still in nappies and I would imagine will be for a long time to come
I still dress him every day and he doesn’t put his arm out for example when prompted to help me, best case scenario is like dressing a doll :( worst case it can again take 30 minutes
His childminder who watches him while I work 3 days a week has recently started making noises about him being hard to handle and not liking the other children in her care. I can see where she’s coming from tbh, he is my amazing beautiful boy but he is also very ful on, he can spend up to 30 mins at a time stimmimg and your day just has to stop while he does because it would lead to a full melt down to try and interrupt him
With all this in mind I have been thinking about giving up work to care for him full time, but this comes with many money worries for us, I was speaking to a friend about it and she expressed surprise he wasn’t receiving dla. I hadn’t actually considered it as I thought you had to have received a diagnosis but looking online this seems not to be the case, but I am still very torn about whether to apply or not. On the one hand it would enable me to give up work and look after him one to one which is really what he needs. On the other hand is it likely to be successful without a diagnosis? Also even though he is significantly different to any other child his age and his needs are much higher I feel like it’s so normal to me I’m not sure what counts anymore? I don’t like comparing him to other children but at the same time I’m not sure how to gauge anything :(
I know this is aibu but the sn kids topic has very little traffic and I also genuinely would like to canvas others opinions on this