MIL bought book on autism for 18 month old

[brushlaptop]

We have an 18 month old son who isn't talking very much yet. He communicates a lot with me, a little with his father (he's not great with outsiders I think due to covid) but it's not really words yet more actions and gestures etc.
Anyway, my DH mentioned to his parents and his MIL turns up with a book about how to raise autistic children, and my PIL took him to the park one afternoon (my fault, I should never have let him take him!) and he sent me a long video of him being "autistic" playing with a toy in the park which is literally designed to get kids attention.
I am really offended by this and don't really know how to react to them. I felt pressured into paying £750 for an autism assessment for him (obviously it came back saying you can't test for autism at this age but they recommend speech therapy to get him talking which we are doing) and every time we see them it's literally their favourite topic of conversation, especially my FIL.

My question is, do I tell them to back off or just ignore? My husband has already mentioned to them that they shouldn't bring it up but they still do.

How many times have you asked them? I would stop and ask them again every time they do it.

If it still continues, I would point blank ignore, get up and go home every single time it comes up. Don’t worry about being rude, if they can ignore your requests so can you.

Or simply end the call if you’re on the phone, with a follow up message: ‘We respectfully asked you not to mention autism when talking about X. Until you are prepared to have a conversation without mentioning it, we’re afraid we won’t be able to take your calls/FaceTime/meet you on Sundays anymore.’

Wow! yeah id go NC after that, thats awful?!

as a parent of asd children theres a quiet word, and that! trying to railroad you into something.

I wouldn't want them anywhere near him! They sound unhinged.

Many 18 month olds aren’t talking. Especially boys as they tend to start speaking later than girls.

They need to stop this. There’s a reason why you can’t test an 18 month old for autism. It’s way too young to know.

I just would stop spending time with them and letting them spend time with my child.

Wow. That's awful. My 18 month old barely had any words but 3 months on and she's learning new ones every day. Honestly, I would be avoiding them at every opportunity!

They either keep their mouths shut or you won't be seeing them anymore.

Their choice.

In the UK you will often struggle to find someone willing to do an autism assessment on very young kids, because there is already a backlog of cases for older kids; but GPs can go through the checklist and give you a referral.

Early intervention really helps kids with ASD. Multiple US studies have found intervention before 3 can change lives, so if you have doubts then definitely do talk to your gp

In the meantime visit this link on prediagnosis from Austism.org.uk.

www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/diagnosis/pre-diagnosis/parents-and-carers

Wow that is awful. Both my kids had hardly any words at all at 18 months but we're both chatting away by 2.

Give them the book back. No unsupervised visits. Tbh not sure if i would want them in my home at all.

@Ozanj are you the FIL?

I didn’t speak a single word until I was 2 years and 3 months old. Neither did any of my siblings. None of us have ASD, and the OP didn’t ask for a link to how to pre-diagnose a child. Her son sounds perfectly fine, and even if he did have ASD, that’s for the parents to manage, not the DGPs to get involved in.

[quote EileenGC]@Ozanj are you the FIL?

I didn’t speak a single word until I was 2 years and 3 months old. Neither did any of my siblings. None of us have ASD, and the OP didn’t ask for a link to how to pre-diagnose a child. Her son sounds perfectly fine, and even if he did have ASD, that’s for the parents to manage, not the DGPs to get involved in.[/quote]
Did you miss the bit where the GP has referred the child to SALT? It doesn’t matter what you did but SALT referrals don’t occur unless a child needs them.

My son was the same at 18 months, but he was language delayed, not autistic. It's important to get him talking, as you are doing. Speech therapy was very helpful for my son.

Tell your MIL to back off and press on with the speech support.

SALT referrals are the first step on the ASD pathway.

Thanks all, yes I agree I need to figure out how to get them to back off without coming across too rude...

Honestly my MIL giving me a book on how to raise an autistic child is one of the meanest things I think anyone has done to me as it basically says 1) you don't know how to raise a child so here is a book on how to do so, 2) I think your son is autistic, and 3) I think that is a problem.

Thank you for your comments xxx

Bloody hell at 3 my ds didn't speak to anyone! Essentials at nursery. Not to my bff until he had known her over a year!! A shy dc that's all! Why does everyone (feels like everyone!) try grab on to a label these days? Tell ils to back off or fuck off!

My neighbour's ds didn't start talking until he was 3. It's perfectly normal in every way.

@Ozanj I think you've missed the point of the post... I have access to the internet so what you are saying is not new news to me my point is to do with the PILs overbearing involvement

@MarshmallowSwede

Many 18 month olds aren’t talking. Especially boys as they tend to start speaking later than girls.

They need to stop this. There’s a reason why you can’t test an 18 month old for autism. It’s way too young to know.

I just would stop spending time with them and letting them spend time with my child.

My DS was diagnosed at 18 months so that's not true

But being non verbal obviously isn't the only criteria

How awful that they are labelling your DC autistic based on there own opinions. It’s very upsetting and there not enjoying there grandchild there videoing him to show evidence to prove there point. Tell them to take the book back and not to bring it up again

Firstly, not using words to communicate at that age is far from unusual as I'm sure the speech therapist has told you.

If you are concerned OP, arrange for your son to have his hearing checked as a priority. (Hopefully the speech therapist has already suggested this) There are many children who have things like Glue Ear which affects their hearing and any response to speech and other sounds.

As for PIL, I'd want to know what their motivation is for this obsession of theirs.

Are they acting out of guilt that because they didn't "see" the signs, your DH or another of their children wasn't diagnosed and had a hard time growing up because of that? Does autism run in their family? Are either of them qualified to diagnose autism or do they work with autistic children?

Once you can understand their motivation, it should be easier for you and your DH to tell them to keep it under wraps, rather than have a huge fallout.

An 'I appreciate that because of (their reasons) you are expressing your concern, but as (child's name's) parents, we have no concerns at present that he's anything but NT, therefore the subject is not up for discussion' is a bit kinder than shut up or don't see him at all.

Maybe if they think you've listened to their reasoning, they'll be more willing to stop?

@brilliantdances yes I have heard of children being diagnosed that young but it wasn't the case for our son.

Besides, that isn't the point of my post. For what it's worth, an autism diagnosis in itself is not a problem at all (autistic children are very talented in many ways just need support in other ways and it would be a case of knowing what support to provide) it's the premature labelling of him on their own standards, the implication that it's a problem, it's "bad" and that I wouldn't be able to parent him that I find upsetting.

@BlankTimes thank you, yes we had his hearing checked and blood tests and both came back fine thankfully.

It seems to be a kind of speech delay, he communicates in many ways not verbally like taking our hand and leading us to things he wants, handing us things to open, handing us things like toys for absolutely no reason and I can only guess he wants us to play with him, grabbing hands and pulling us along to chase him, pointing at things he wants etc.

I honestly can't work out their motivation 🤷‍♀️ my DH thinks it's their way of trying to help by bringing the book for my information etc but it's really not helpful at all...

Thank you so much for your comments, I agree with them all!

Buy them a book on how not to be a twat. Kids develop at different rates doesn't mean they all have autism. My speech was horrendous when I was younger. Actually in all fairness it still is now. What I want to say and what actually comes out of my mouth are 2 very different things and it's not even intelligible. I don't even mix words round. It literally comes out like this jwiddnrsjdnwen. Especially when I'm tired or nervous. It's even worse when I actually try and purposely force a sentence out that's in my head and I'm definitely not autistic. I'm having an assessment soon for part of a course I'm doing for work that involves someone listening to how I speak to make sure I'm communicating clearly to my clients. That's going to be a barrel of laughs cos I'll be nervous too

You are waaay to subtle. With no uncertain terms I would tell them it is highly inappropriate, you don't appreciate them trying to diagnose your child and you don't think their actions are helpful in any way. Tell them not to raise the subject again or otherwise it will permanently impact your relationship.