Worried again - autism?

[paradise]

Hi

I have posted a few threads over the last month, about my worries over my DS and his behaviour. Saw my HV recently about his language, using 4-5 word sentences although is quite unclear. She dismissed my thoughts on possible autism as she said he communicates and talks alot!! Jimjams or anyone, are you out there? I'll recap a bit-
DS is 2.5,

1. he has been quite aggressive with his peers over the last three months, pushing etc mainly over toys at playgroups, gets very upset. Even tells me when he's pushed somebody!

2. often repeats what I've said, but always seems to be in context. He also has started to say same things in certain places, e.g. will ask if we need petrol, whilst going down the same road, nr a petrol station.

3)has been humming tunes, singing alot, sometimes the singing doesn't even make sense. He's o.k when he's engrossed in an actvity, my dh thinks he's just amusing himself, just seems a bit strange sometimes.

4. Tantrums have become quite intense, will get upset over something slight, like the washing line being up!

5. loves his routines, although can be distracted from them more frequently now. e.g. his drink of water has to sit exactly at the same place when he brushes his teeth.

6)Sometimes bangs me with his head, although i did think this was just to get attention.

7)Memory seems exceptionally good

8)Lines up his cars alot and tells me that they're 'parked'when I ask him what he's doing. Seemed to do this after me buying him a garage.

Sorry, this has turned out to be a rather long post.
on the good side he:
1)points alot to things of interest
2)will look if I attract his attention to something
3)will copy me sometimes if I ask him to, although I do think he knows I'm trying to test him sometimes and doesn't want to do it.

I don't know whether to go back to my HV and try and convince her about my concerns or to go and see my GP. DS also starts his nursery this week, all be it just a transitional phase, 2 afternoons a week till July. Should I wait to see if they pick anything up?

Some days I feel fine and some days just seem to pick out all the bad bits. I love my little boy so much and just want to be able to do the right thing for him.

thanks for listening, it helps just writing it all down.

I believe some deaf children do have language problems. My son has a deaf unit in his school and some of the children def. have language problems. One girl is hearing impaired and has a language disorder!!!

I always thought that deaf children learned sign etc with grammatical rules etc naturally in place though iyswim (whereas someone like my son seems to have no innate sense of grammer at all). I suppose anyone can have several disorders (especially if the deafness has been caused by say a chromosome disorder or something similar) but having a language disorder isn't part and parcel of being deaf iyswim.

I'm just trying to explain why autism is far more than a communication disorder. Mind you Davros has explained the reasons far better than me.

In fact thinking about it there are people who maintain that autism is a SENSORY disorder and the communication problems stem entirely from that (eg they hear out of synch, sensory processing delays, they don;'t point as they can't see what they are pointing to etc etc). A good book on that is Stella Waterhouse "a positve apporach to autism" - I remember moaning to her about a certain lunatic SALTs obsession with teaching a child to point before introducing anything like PECS and she said "of course he won't bloody point if he can't see the page". Of course she was right......