To really not understand...

[jamoncrumpets]

How some parents can't seem to work out that their kids are autistic before they start primary school?

I've read at least five threads this week about kids with no diagnosis struggling in mainstream school. Kids that aren't even yet on the ASD diagnosis pathway.

How could your kid get to five and you not notice that they were autistic? Honestly?

To be absolutely clear I am not talking about parents who have noticed differences and have started on the diagnosis pathway - I know myself from experience that it can take up to two years to get a diagnosis.

I'm talking about parents who have not even begun that process.

I'm genuinely baffled by it.

[LonginesPrime]

What a horrible, smug thread.

honestly. I don't understand how a parent could not spot a non NT kid before the age of 5.

OP, assuming this is a genuine question, it seems that you have very little life experience, as evidenced by the fact you started this thread. People are different, and not every autistic child is like your autistic child.

There are loads of reasons, including:

• other disabilities in a child being more noticeable or problematic
• symptoms being attributed to PTSD following trauma
• symptoms being attributed to other conditions
• children developing coping mechanisms and masking their difficulties
• parents' concerns being dismissed by professionals
• parents raising kids in challenging circumstances where they have far bigger worries
• stigma around diagnosis

[LittleSweet]

It becomes more obvious at secondary school because the neurotypical children develop more sophisticated social skills, whereas the autistic children can't. Also the setting, behaviour expectations and levels of independence also become complex for an autistic person to keep up with. It's not that the person has become more autistic, the expectation and world around them has become more complex. This lack of understanding means the person cannot mask as effectively.

[Ginger1982]

What a judgmental thread. Nice one OP. Let's all pile on 🙄

[AnnieAnt]

I kept asking about DD from preschool and being told there were no concerns whatsoever. Same at school, although they noted low mood/anxiety. So we kept being reassured and it took a while to link things together. Not least as she is very good at masking outside and it all comes out at home. But people don't always believe you and I have had more than one person make me think like a middle class mum seeking an excuse for behaviour.

To be honest, sometimes I think once you start to look for signs, you see them everywhere. And I then ended up seriously questioning my judgement.

[MattBerrysHair]

42HarrietTheFly

You sound incredibly similar to me and how I presented as a child and teenager. I was diagnosed at the age of 37.

[steff13]

That chart is from 2009. Lots of us had kids who were toddlers before 2009. My oldest was born in 1999.

[CaptainCallisto]

DS1 was 7 when he got his diagnosis. Like a PP I raised concerns with the HV when he was two and was told he absolutely, 100% was not autistic because he likes cuddles. I raised it again with his nursery when he was 3 and struggling socially; again told he couldn't possibly be. I thought "these guys are professionals, they're trained in this stuff" so assumed it was just my imagination and DS was just shy and quirky. He managed well in reception and it wasn't until nearly Christmas in Y1 and his teacher brought it up with me that she had concerns that it came up again.

Honestly, if even the professionals are getting it wrong so often are you really surprised that people with no training miss the signs?!

[OrangeZog]

I know several adults who have only recently being diagnosed. To some people the signs and symptoms are normal to them and others either mimic those around them or else have mild or easily disguised symptoms.

[WiltedPlant]

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/25/why-the-world-expert-on-aspergers-took-30-years-to-notice-condition-in-his-own-son

[LittleSweet]

There would still have been a similar amount of autistic people but they weren't diagnosed, or if you were in Nazi Germany they would have been killed. More obviously autistic people would have been put in asylums. In those days the autistic people would have been called odd, eccentric, weird... Read Neurotribes by Steve Silverman. It's like a history of autism. It's good.

[Leaannb]

My 11yo son was diagnosed 3 weeks ago.. not my first child. The only way it was picked up was because the school psycologist was in his classroom observing another student and noticed it sime things and had him tested. He had already been tested twice before he was 5 and nothing. I told my dh who served 22 years in the Air force and he stated "I have that too." He wasn't diagnosed until he was out processing from the military as part of his retirement. I didn't pick up on his quirks because I lived with it for 25 years. I thought it was just mannerisims that he picked up from being with his dad

[HarrietTheFly]

I think it was obvious that I was not "normal" as a child. I was selectively mute, reading at 18 months at a fairly advanced level considering my age, very rigid over certain routines, sensory issues, struggled socially and so on. I was the firstborn child and I think that was partly why, my dm didn't know what was normal and what wasn't, plus general lack of awareness back then, especially that girls could be autistic too - I am 32. I was never a trouble maker and did well academically so nothing was flagged up by the school (fairly sure I'd qualify as dyspraxic though so had issues relating to that, did very badly in PE and had a lot of anxiety about it, but perhaps that is just part of autism rather than dyspraxia, plus the selective mutism).

Also my dm has a tendency to ignore certain problems and I think that was part of it. I self harmed as a teenager, something my mum discovered but she chose to believe my very flimsy made up excuse about what the scars were from rather than delving further, so even if I'd been born today I am not sure she would have pursued any kind of diagnosis over my behaviours.

My own child on the other hand is currently on the waiting list for assessment. I don't know that she will need extra support in school but I want her to have a diagnosis because in my experience one of the hardest things is the not knowing why you can't be like everyone else and always feeling like everyone else has access to some sort of 'how to behave' handbook that you missed out on. I remember my father snapping at me one day, "why can't you just be normal?". I don't want my own child to ever have that feeling.

[WiltedPlant]

But @jamoncrumpets these ppl (as you say) don’t think/know their child is autistic in the first place so why would they be looking for the M CHAT!! You sound very ignorant OP...I really hope you don’t work with ppl with autism or their families

^ this

[MattBerrysHair]

But a parent would have to be vaguely familiar with the many ways autism can present in order to think of looking for that in the first place! Meltdowns can look like tantrums, repetitive behaviours aren't uncommon in NT toddlers as many children go through such phases as a normal part of development. You seem to believe that all people diagnosed with autism displayed very obvious signs from birth and that is simply not the case for a lot of us. It wasn't until my ds was about 8 that we realised that many of his traits looked like ordinary childhood development, up until the point where he didn't grow out of them and they continued passed the age of being considered 'normal'.

[Selfsettling3]

Girls often don’t display classic symptoms of autism.

[ari11]

No offence pp, but you don’t seem to have any idea about ASD diagnosis processes and /pathway! I knew my Ds was autistic from the age of 2yrs. However, despite being under a paediatrician and the school supporting our suspicions he didn’t receive a diagnosis until he was 7yrs old.

In our case the diagnosis process took place over a long period of time, with school observations, and multi professional assessments. Not a quick process!

[Selfsettling3]

As a Secondary teacher I’ve worked with students who no one has had any concerns that they had autism until they reached puberty at 14 and at that point their behaviour changed.

[Lipperfromchipper]

But @jamoncrumpets these ppl (as you say) don’t think/know their child is autistic in the first place so why would they be looking for the M CHAT!! You sound very ignorant OP...I really hope you don’t work with ppl with autism or their families

[JacquesHammer]

Fuck me, better parenting and rudimentary google skills.

Quite the skill set.

[Bluntness100]

I also think you're being goady op. I have no direct experience of autism, and even I know that behaviours, if that's the correct term, vary wildly and can be hard to identify.

I think I'm going to report your post, because I am not wholly convinced this thread is written in the best of interests.

[MistyKoala]

I really don’t understand why you don’t understand this. If you know as much about autism as you you’re implying you do then you’d know that even professionals have a difficult time deciding whether someone meets the criteria for a diagnosis.

Also, FYI, even if there are difficulties or red flags in childhood it could be a million conditions or environmental factors influencing those, not just autism.

[BlueGingerale]

Jeez Maisie. I said Autism has grown exponentially. Which means there were kids in the 80s with autism just a fraction of the number we have now.

If you have autism you must have difficulties with social communication and with social interaction. That would have been noticeable when you were a child.

People who knew you as a child and who have learnt about autism would now be able to say you had autism when you were a child. Even if they couldn’t say that in the 80s because they didn’t know about Autism

[jamoncrumpets]

I found that in three seconds on my phone @MattBerrysHair by googling 'autism signs in toddlers'

I wasn't suggesting people keep a hard copy

[WorraLiberty]

My friend's child wasn't diagnosed until she was 8yrs old because a lot of her traits didn't become obvious until she was older.

She often says her DD 'grew into her autism'.

[LittleSweet]

All my classmates knew an autistic child, but I wasn't diagnosed! I found out when I was 44.