Autism or Terribe Two's

[AllisonRose]

Anyone out there with a young child living with Autism in which you sometimes question or even doubt the diagnosis, even if it's only for a moment while your child is playing "normally" with a sibling? My three year old was recently diagnosed. Please reply with experience or knowledge. Thanks. Allison

AllisonRose, I'm sorry no-one has replied to your question yet. There are several Mums on here with autistic children but maybe none of them are around at the moment. If I were you I would post on the Special Needs board too - and bump it back up into active conversations tomorrow daytime when more people are around.

Sorry I have no advice to give you myself, just didn't want you to think you were being ignored.

Hi Alison. My ds1 was diagnosed with high-functioning autism earlier this year. I've never doubted the diagnosis itself but there are quite a lot of occasions now when you would never guess he was autistic. When he plays with his brother and they are giggling hysterically in a corner somewhere he seems just like any other little boy.

I'm new to this site, in addition - I'm in California, USA. So a bit of a time difference. I'll post it again first thing tomorrow morning (my time - it's 2:35 pm right now). Thanks for your reply. Best wishes!

COPPERTOP - Oh my goodness, that's what I'm talking about! There are moments when my son, Dominic, is playing with his sister and a stranger would never know! How reassuring. I DO KNOW something is wrong, I happen to have a lot of pressure from family members who won't admit it - major denial. Thanks again!

HI AllisonR -- where in California? I'm originally from San Diego but in the UK. There are at least 2 other transplanted Californians on MN.
Sorry I know bugger all about autism, though.

Welcome to Mumsnet!

If it's any consolation my family are still pretty much in denial too. Despite me lending them books etc on the subject they still seem to think ds1 can't possibly be autistic because he doesn't spend his time rocking back and forth in a corner somewhere or headbutt the walls!

I'm in Sacramento (Northern/Capital)... You hit it exactly, the stereotypical rocking in the corner, scream if you touch him - type is what many people still think. My son can have such "normal" moments, especially when he is in a safe, familiar environment with his family. It can be deceiving, but we as parents KNOW when something is wrong. I have two other children, as well - one who was and is the perfect "angel" and a daughter who was your typical tantrum throwing "spoiled" girl... I can tell the difference when something is actually wrong! Thanks for your comforting replies!!

Ooh, was just earlier emailing my cousin who lives in Elk Grove. She was going on a bit about her adult daughter who has ADD and drives my poor cousin batty with "poor life choices". Someone else on MN reckoned that ADD/ADHD kids are harder to raise than severely autistic kids, and listening to my cousin (who also has an adult Down's Syndrome son to care for), I wondered if that might not be true.

Given the strops my 'normal' 4yo was throwing today, I'm not sure if any child is ever easy to raise, though. Enough of me being chatty. If you describe more about your son I imagine the other parents of autistic kids on MN will have a lot to compare with.

Well, at this point, the psychologist says he's autistic (high functioning, although he needs an actual assessment done) and possible ADHD. My son is socially delayed, he talks in sentences quite often, but they are usually unintelligible (especially to strangers), he can be quite aggressive, however - he can be quite sweet with me, he has tantrums for unknown reasons sometimes, and sometimes they lead to aggressive behavoir - sometimes he cries REALLY hard until it just "ends" or he wants to be held. I'm at work everyone, I better go before I get fired!!! I will post a message tomorrow morning (my time). Thank you all!

AllisonRose - sorry I have no advice or experience of this but there are lots of MN members with children on the autistic spectrum. - you could do a link to the Special Needs threads or copy your message there so that they norice it more easily.

I see , two threads. That was why no reply

The sudden change of personality sounds all too familiar. Yesterday morning, for example, he was happy and smiling while I started to dress his little brother. 5 seconds later he grabbed a heavy toy and whacked me on the back of the head with it in a rage because I was putting ds2's clothes on in the 'wrong' order. I think I saw stars!

My family only really see him while he's in his home environment and relatively calm. When I talk about his meltdowns they think I'm just talking about a normal tantrum. It's hard to explain in words just what a real meltdown is like - especially when the other person doesn't really WANT to understand.

I have friends and family in denial. like you say coppertop, they see them in calm mode. My mum saw DS2 yesterday though when he was screeching and got a bit of a shock.

Ahh another thread!

Alison you have NT children as well. I think there is a hige difference between my autistic child and my NT child. So compare away! My NT child is now 2 and in the middle of tantrums- but they are nothing, I find them quite amusing, he doesn;t hurt himself, they're quickly forgotten - and usually they are over not getting his own way. My autistic child's tantrum are more like meltdowns- he'll lose it completely- and usually it over something being (in his mind) "wrong". He's dropped something, the car's stuck in traffic (so he'll whack his head on the window- hard as he's 5!), we have to queue in the supermarket (no more I don't take him) so he'll headbutt the till.

Ds2 is difficult at times, and for an autistic child ds1 is pretty relaxed BUT ds1 is so much harder than ds2. The 2 can't even be compared really. With an NT child you can reason with them, you can change plans at the minute (eg today as we were about to leave for school ds2 did a poo- so we had to stop to change him and all hell broke loose as ds1 expected to go), you don't have to think ahead all the time with an NT child.

Family etc took a long time to accept my son was autistic. I suspected from 17 months and even after he was dxed at just over 3 people like my MIL wouldn't believe it. After all he looks normal. And he's affectionate which people still can't get their head around. And as he was so passive when younger he was quite easy- content to amuse himself. He looked like a "perfect" child really, smiley, always happy. He seemed to observe everything. Now I see how difficult things like getting his attention was- if I set up a game to play he wasn't interested, if I tried to paint with hi he wasn't interested, if I tried to show him an interesting animal at the zoo he wasn't interested.

We still have problems from family. We visited a zoo on a very busy day- huge queue, ds1 had a meltdwon- anyway I jumped the queue with him (as he's registered disabled we got in free). Then had to try and find the in - laws (who were stuck in the queue). After about 20 minutes (most of it spent screaming) eventually found them and MIL said "oh I thought we would all go and have a nice meal in a restaurant somewhere" WTF? And she wants to know why we haven't got his name down for the local private school (he's non verbal). And she spends the whole time saying "I had 2 children so I know what its like" - except neither of them were autistic and it makes a HUGE difference.

The point being that MIL has seen him growing and she still doesn't "get it", At the zoo visit she took him into a queue to see some lemurs- which has to be the stupidest thing anyone has done. SIL spotted it and said "oh my god what's my mother done" and then the scremaing started. She wanted to walk round the zoo reading every sign at a snail's pace, not realising that if you want to have a day out with an autistic child it HAS to be on their terms or you don't go.

Sorry turned into a rant but just to say that often people who really "should" get it just don't and I realy cannot understand why. I think maybe they just don't want to.

oh and another example first time MIL saw a meltdown.

DS1 was just under 3. We were moving house. At the time he had a thing about doors- they had to be shut- and we had removal men in to pick up the stuff we were taking with us (rest was going into storage). So I aked MIL to take ds1 out to the garden to play on the swing otherise he's be going ape over the front dopor being open. Anyway after 10 minutes she got bored and came inside (he was happy- he would have sat on the swing for an hour and a half at the time). DS1 saw the front door was open and flipped. MIL decided to take him upstairs - except there was no way ds1 was going upstairs as the door was open. Cue major major major meltdown (it was a big one). Anyway she managed to drag him up to the top of the stairs- which took about 10 minutes - and he was kicking, scremaing - of she let go of him he ran downstairs again. We had a gate at the toip of the stairs so then he tried to climb over the banisters then just lay kicking and screaming on the floor.

Then the removal men lft, the door was closed and the scremaing stopped instantly and calm was restored (ds1 just left sobbing).

And MIL? Did she then understand why I had asked her to take him to the garden? Did she think about what this reaction- which was way beyond normal (and we had been told he was probably autistic at the time- and MIL had told me I was too negative)- meant? Oh no she said - and I quote- "I think that's because someone said no to him for the first time".

Like I said some people don't want to get it.

ROFL @ gates in playgrounds. Oh yes been there! Also when anxious he went through a stage of getting "stuck" in strange places. I remember going to Godstone Farm (the name of which brings me out in a shiver now) and he just go stuck next to a tractor. Refused to budge. if we tried to get him away he screamed, hit and would run back. He wasn't doing anything with the tractor- just standing next to it. At the same time whenever we went anyhere with stairs he would just sit at the bottom of them and would refuse to move. OK in friend's houses but difficult when we had appointments to attend. I remember one appointment lasted an hour and he screamed the wholt time becuase he wasn't allowed to sit on the stairs.

That was a bad time! (just after ds2 was born so he a bit freaked out).

Hi Allisonrose, I have a son who is nearly 9, non-verbal and classic auti. I'm sorry to say that, at a younger age the differences are much less noticeable and children with ASD just don't stand out as much. They also have't developed so many stimmy/repetitive behaviours etc. Not speaking or speaking strangely is not so noticeable. I don't want to depress you but it is definitely true that, as they get older, the differences become more noticable and less acceptable to "society". The tantrums won't be for no reason either, there is always a reason, its just not easy to understand what it is sometimes and, as you can tell from some of the others who've posted here, it can be something quite bizarre (to us) and it takes practice to understand what tantrums and other behaviours are all about. I haven't seen the other thread, haven't made it down the list of topics that far! Anyway, welcome to Mumsnet and remember you can ask us anything!