Firstly, sending you lots of love 💕
My DS is 6 weeks away from his 5th birthday. He hit all of his milestones and regressed at 18 months old and didn’t speak again until just after his 3rd Birthday.
He attended a special needs nursery for a term and they gave him PEC’s and Makaton which helped and then they discharged him from their care! (I fought so hard to get him there and after 2 months they said it was no longer appropriate - everyone says early intervention is key but getting anyone to intervene is almost impossible and soul destroying in the process)
He’s on the Pathway for an Autism diagnosis and was on the waiting list to NHS SALT. (He’s only just had his 4 hours after waiting since he was 2 years old!!)
if you can afford it, I throughly recommend finding a private SALT. It’s the best thing we ever did for our Son. You can find one on the ASLTIP website. Until a year ago DS could only say Mum, Dad, Yes, No and Bye - A year of regular (not weekly, he did his in blocks of 4 weekly sessions, then a short break and then another block) speech therapy has been life changing.
He is now speaking in sentences (pronunciation can be poor and hard to understand but our SALT isn’t worried about that and says it will improve) and we can actually have conversations with him! This is something I never thought we’d have and means the World to me - I resigned myself to the fact that he would never talk and found it all very difficult to cope - the worry and anxiety nearly crippled me - it still does at times.
I know that speech therapy isn’t like this for everyone but I didn’t think it was possible for my Son and honestly it’s worked wonders.
We were also late to potty training (I think this was my fault, as I was waiting for his speech to improve before starting) and it just felt like we had been potty training him for years. He only “got” the poo side of potty training at the start of this year (he was a few months past his 4th birthday) but is now dry at night too.
He has an EHCP but has just started mainstream primary school and is doing well so far.
I know he is autistic. A year ago this terrified me, kept me up at night and made me compare him to everyone. I was utterly terrified about him starting school and whilst I know he has his challenges, he has made enormous progress over the past year - he’s just leaned to swim, with swimming lessons in a class full of 4 other kids and is doing well, earning three badges recently and moving up two groups - again something I never thought we’d be able to do - especially not in a group session with other noisy kids)
Meal times have always been a problem as he just wouldn’t eat a hot meal at home (but always did at nursery and now School) but that is slowly improving too. I learned to offer him what we were eating and then just let it go if he says no and serve him a safe food and make sure he takes a multivitamin. Thankfully he eats a lot of fruit and dairy and eats chicken so his overall diet isn’t too restricted.
I genuinely never thought we would get where we are now but he’s made so much progress and I genuinely couldn’t be prouder of him. There is always hope 💕