Are these signs of asd? Or just normal toddler behaviour?

[Moulesfrites]

My friend is worried about her 16 mo ds as he shows quite obsessive behaviour and she isnt sure if it could be a sign that he is on the spectrum. I don't know about these this and my ds is only 7mo so not sure what is normal for a toddler, but I said I would ask on here...

He gets obsessed about odd little things eg he loves playing with door handles and gets upset if he can't get to them.

She has bought him 4 identical comfort toys as she knows how upset he would be to lose one.

He is funny about grass - doesn't like sitting on it, touching it etc, which she thinks could be a sensory thing?

As I said, I have no idea what this means, but thought there would be someone on here who does!

Yes. I think the grass thing is common. My brother used to hate the feel of grass. I know because I used to constantly carry him and put him in it

I am just of the view that there is enough bothering the mother that she should seek advice. I suspect the incidence of mothers having their concerns dismissed is probably higher than that of mothers being forced to consider a diagnosis against their better instincts.

Having a child with asd is not something I wilfully wish upon other mothers.

justabout - I would love to post a link to the thread I refer to. I won't because I don't want to drag it up again and I will no doubt get attacked again. But it was disgusting. I was called names and told I was a bad mother.

I think the grass thing is quite common, but perhaps the intensity (and length of time it lasts?) might be different in autism? (And again in the context of other behaviours). We couldn't get ds1 on the beach for years. He was fine aged 2, but between 3 and ??? 7 - nope - also couldn't get him on grass. I remember telling a friend, we then decided to try an outing to the moor. Put him on the grass (with shoes on)- he ran screaming to the car and started headbutting it. Friend said 'hmm when you told me I thought you might be exaggerating but I see you're not'. The beach was the same. He's fine with beach and grass now (in fact we go to the beach nearly every day now).

I really recommend again the First Signs site mentioned a couple of times above, and in particular their extensive free video archive - I really really wish something like that had been around in my day :granny blogs: It goes through and shows examples of typical and ASD behaviours and describes the difference and does help I think show whether what you're seeing it typical behaviours or something to be concerned about.

I do think that in the UK there isn't a problem of over - dx (more the opposite) so there's unlikely to be a negative result of getting concerns checked out (although you might have problems persuading someone to take you seriously). In other word a false dx is so unlikely, if you have any concerns at all you may as well get checked out and either get the reassurance that all is well or get the chance of early intervention. I've worked with an early intervention programme and the biggest problem they had was finding the kids, they knew they were out there but they weren't being referred to the service until too late (it was a pre-school service and generally children were ending up there a term before they started school - too late). Such a shame.

just a closing post from me (well for this thread at least)

thanks for the recommendations and advice for me and DD, i didn't think she had ASD, but agree there are some signs to be more aware of.

thanks for the PMs and on-thread messages

Moulesfrites, growing up bilingual does not delay speech and language development.

it is a very common misconception that bilingual upbringing does cause speech delay but there is so much research out there which quite clearly shows that it does not delay speech & language development.

PS - DC grows up bilingual...;-)

I was in denial of dd2 Asd traits for quite a few months. My friend ended up asking me outright as she has a son with autism and she knew dd1 was too. I think back now and she had clear signs before she hit two, it just after two they become more seeable.

agree with lisa, DC (even though no dx yet) had only very subtle traits pre-2. between 2 and 3 odd things started to show a bit more but after turning 3, so many things are just so plain obvious :(

Addressbook, I think I remember your thread. Was it the one were the nursery worker said she thought your child showed signs of asd? I remember thinking and posting that whilst he may or may not show signs, a nursery nurse is not qualified to make such a diagnosis.
Fwiw, I don't think everyone gave you a hard time on there. Yes, lots of posters said you should listen to the professionals but many others, myself included said that her comments were actually rather unprofessional as she is not qualified to make that diagnosis but that if you did have concerns and/or concerns were hinted at when your child starts school then you should visit your GP or HV.

Oh and Ive said this before but jimjams, I will always be eternally grateful to you as I wholeheartedly believe your advice 'saved' my DS from a possible future asd diagnosis.
Around 6.5yrs ago I posted asking if I was being neurotic that my son was acting in a weird manic and aggressive way after eating gluten. Everyone, inc my GP had said yes. You came on and said no, and told me all about the ARU at Sunderland. Lo and behold, DS had leaky gut! To this day I believe that the cloud that had decended over my 8mth old lifted and we caught him in time before any lasting damage occured. The crazy episodes of head banging and clawing at his own skin stopped and he started to reconnect with us. Sounds dramatic but all true. Of course we will never know for sure but I cannot think what damage 2 more years of gluten in his diet could have caused both physically and cognitively.

I was an infant teacher and it led me to go back and do my masters based around early inteventions and spotting early signs of various issues. So once again, thank you!

Oh carpet :) you'll make me cry, that's lovely. Thank you.

DS2 and ds3 were gluten free from birth but both had cow's milk. DS3 started zoning out, not engaging etc and having blank episodes. So we sent the sample off to the ARU and his profile was worse than DS1's for casein! We switched to goat's (an unusual switch I know but there were reasons for it) and hey presto the lights went on. He's 6 now (and on a typical diet now) and fine.

I would have do things very differently with ds1 if I had my time again. Beautiful though he is.

All true! Without sounding too gushy, I think you changed the course of our lives. Everyone else told me I was a neurotic first time mum and I was ready to believe them until I posted that night.

Strangely, DS's Sunderland profile showed no problems with casein and he never seemed affected by it. But gluten...oh and artificial sweetners.

I'm off to bed as 2wks away from having no4! Ive had two girls since DS neither of whom have had problems but we've just discovered by virtue of late scan that this one is another boy so I will be watching him like a hawk and keeping him GF for the first 2yrs. Thank you again.

Oh congratulations! :) No ds1 never had problems with casein which was why I didn't bother worrying about it with ds2 or ds3. DS3's profile was 'woah check out that peak'

And thank you again, it's really lovely to be told that :) and I am pleased it all worked out.

carpetlover - not everyone was mean no. And I will admit I was sensitive and anxious at that time. I did take on board what some of the nicer and more tactful posters said. We have not ignored the issue and ds is on stage 1 intervention, but as of yet no one has recommended getting him assessed by paeds etc - of course we will take that step if necessary. Actually that was all the nursery nurse was recommending, but it was badly communicated. She couldn't really tell me what the staged intervention programme was and what the first step would be. I got that information from the deputy head.

But some posters were out of order in the manner and way they wrote. I did not deserve to be called names or told that 'I feel sorry for your ds'

I get very confused about it. I mean my understanding is that it is a huge spectrum, and many people could be on it somewhere or another. My ds did have traits as a toddler e.g. lining cars up, repetitiveness, love of routine. He has grown out of these though. Well he still likes routine, but then so do I! I understand that toddlers can learn in this way - something to do with schemas?

He has very good vocabulary and communication, but before someone snipes at me and says 'well autistic children can have good vocabulary' - I absolutely understand that and I began to think maybe my ds has the aspergic trait of quite grown up language but not understanding the subtle clues of communication. But no I don't see that either.

His role play is not repetitive or learned. He plays a lot with the kids on our street and ends up playing their role playing games (mostly girls who want to play mums and dads!) because although he would love to play Star Wars, they aren't into that. No doubt someone wil tell me this doesn't mean anything but then I am left confused about what ASD actually is.

My ds is shy and he can come across as aloof with people he doesn't know well, but my dh was very much like that as a kid. He was very serious and intense apparently. He has settled into school fine, although I know that can change.

It has moved on from that terrible thread six months ago. My ds made it clear that his favourite nursery worker was another lady, so I built up a relationship with her. The morning after that thread I dropped ds off in tears and she was fantastic. One poster accused me of acting 'horrified' at the prospect of ds being autistic. It was assigning feelings to me, when I hadn't even had time to process it. I was merely worried for my ds, not horrified. I love him more than anything and want him to be happy and secure, that is all. I have no dreadful judgements of autistic children, I just know it can cause difficulties for them and of course I worry about my ds as any mother would.

And yes despite best intentions there is prejudice and stigma surrounding anything to with mental health or development. It is terrible and believe me I know about it as my birth mother was schizophrenic.

Oh and one poster wrote denial in capital letters as a post and that was it. As if she had made her mind up my ds was autistic and I was merely in denial about it. Given that this was the first time it was raised to me and the first step was to inform his P1 teacher and monitor, that was disgusting.

I think as a parenting forum, the special needs section can be invaluable and I am sure there are many lovely mums of children with special needs trying to educate and enlighten. That is needed and I really, really understand that. I myself have written and worked for a Scottish Mental Health charity.

But I am sorry some posters are far too agressive and it may give the wrong impression. It certainly put me off

I remember Adressbook's thread. wasn't there another one at the time, was the OP in Greece or somewhere?
I had the opposite problem. For 3 years people telling me it was my parenting skills. Then I was acused of abuse, becasue i shouted at him and couldn't cope with his behaviour, when ds2 was born. Turns out he had Aspergers.

Can I just ask what the obvious traits of ASD are in a 3 yr old? Having read around the subject it appears that no two children present with it in the same way.
Surely it's impossible to diagnose with any degree of accuracy. I can't help feeling it may be that it's being overdiagnosed by health professionals to satisfy parents worried something "wrong" with their child.

No two children present the same.

But given that support and intervention costs a huge amount of money I doubt that many health professionals diagnose to keep mum happy.

Getting a diagnosis is, in most cases, horrendously difficult.
And I know very few parents who wish their child to have sn.
Quite the opposite.

I remember the thread and yes you did get very upset. I think the vast majority of posters did say only a) that the nursery had handled it very badly and b) that you get an assessment to either put your mind at rest or to allow intervention to start ASAP. You did get very upset at suggestion B unfortunately although personally it is advice I would still give to anyone who had concerns (and iirc you said you did have some) or whe concerns had been raised. Mainly because (as I'm sure I said then) you can wait years for an assessment (literally) so you may as well get yourself on the list and cancel if there's no need for it. Much better than worrying for years but bing reassured by well meaning people, then panicking and being unable to get on any list. Believe me it's awful when you know there is something wrong but you can't get an assessment.

I think Arrogantcat's question is a fair one. my limited, and now fading, understanding, would be this, and I'm happy to be corrected.

1. the child's brain is developing in such a way that s/he isn't processing the outside world's input like the average child despite probably having perfectly good working eyes and ears and quite possibly no learning difficulties. So maybe s/he isn't recognising faces, maybe s/he isn't reading body language or eye contact well, maybe s/he isn't processing language into meaning, maybe s/he is hearing certain kinds of noise 100 times louder than other people do and feeling certain light touches as very unpleasant on the skin. It's all to do with stuff being taken in differently from how other people take it in.

1. The things set out above delay or change the child's course of development. Development has gone a bit or a lot off-course. Just like a car going off-course, it could end up in all sorts of places (loud or quiet, violent or withdrawn,etc and it all depends how off-course you've gone - you may be only a bit off-course).

1. Unfortunately we then tend to think of the things set out above as signs of ASD. But it should be the other way round. "ASD" is "a catch-all term to describe a child in whom some of the things in paragraph 1 are happening to an extent bad enough to cause problems".

I certainly agree that ASD tells you nothing about the underlying difficulties (if that's what you mean) and I definitely agree that many professionals forget that kids with ASd's are all very different and forget that it isn't even one condition.

but it gives a good place to start and it makes it easier to access services/supoort which once in place you can explore what is actually going on with your child.

I think the 'bad enough to cause problems' for me is paramount. Apart from some settling in minor problems, which by the end of the nursery year I was told had resolved, my ds does not to me have any difficulties which warrant major concern. Aside from that, the concerns weren't raised until my ds had been at nursery six months, they weren't documented anywhere and I was approached in an unprofessional manner.

Oblomov - I think that must be a very distressing situation. To be accused of abuse for shouting! Gosh I have shouted at my ds.

I won't deny my ds had traits (although they are less distinct now) but then so do many, many children. My dd who is two freaks out if grass or sand touch her feet.