Help with autistic 2 year old

[Lily189]

Hi everyone
When my son was around 18 months(he turnt 2bin 29th September) we took him to the doctors after concerns from us and his health visitor about him
We were then sent to an appointment where he was assessed and the doctor agreed what she seen was autism where no in the process of this and waiting for our appointment with child development and speech therapy

My son says no words and only uses noises and arm flapping to communicate with us he was always such a calm easy baby but recently hes having a lot of outbursts where he just screams throws himself and flaps about at times hell also hit and bite then when he clam he will come to me and want to cuddle me

I think it's from being frustrated at times from not being able to communicate himself to is properly and also when he trys to do stuff and he cant he gets so upset for example he loves the small plastic balls from his ball pit he lines them up everywhere when one moves he goes insane over it
Weve also has to put locks on the fridge as he constantly wants food and throws tantrums at the fridge and steals food off his 9 month old sister
I feel so upset he cant tell tell us how he feels what's going on in his wee mind it breaks my heart eveyday the tantrums have just got so bad it went from 1 or 2 a day to over 10 and more
I also wonder if I'll evey hear his wee voice I've cried so much for him it just gets hard
He also never tells us when he has peed or pooed and where going through a fortune in pull ups he wont go on the potty I've I've tryed hell play on it but wont do anything
He also has alot of energy and never naps durning the day hes up from 7am till 8pm and hes non stop all day
He loves being outdoors and that really makes him his happiest but with the weather we havnt been able to get out
But hes the most amazing child so loving and happy
Sorry for long post I just have mo one whose went through anything similar and people in my family with kids say they understand but no one really does
Has anyone who is going through similar and advice on help for him things you do with your children all help would be amazing tia

Have you tried sign language? Either teaching at home or signing up to a class like Tiny Talk? It can be great for communicating with non-verbal children and might help some of the frustration if you can both learn some basic signs (like food, drink, more, done, etc.)

Well he sounds like a 2yo to me! Mines the same age and we're deep in the midst of terrible twos. Yesterday I broke his biscuit in half and the world ended. In the middle of M&S cafe. I'm not bothering with potty training until next year - most of my friends said between 2.5-3 so I'm just going to try at Easter I think, he doesn't tell us when he's been yet and can't get his trousers down by himself so there's no point pushing it until he's ready in my opinion. We've still got a nap at the moment but it's non stop the rest of the time, I put the TV on so I can have a rest! I've got waterproofs for DS and me, we've been out this morning in the park, I can't say it's much fun for me but he likes it.

Have you tried signing or having picture cards of things available? How's his understanding?

By the way it's totally normal for him still to be in nappies. Two is very young to toilet train. DD has no SEN and she and all her pals weren't trained until 2.5 at the earliest. At just turned 2 she wasn't telling me when she peed or pooped either! So don't worry too much about that

Knock potty training on the head. It can take far longer for autistic children anyway and is a big change.
When he's 'tantruming' over food, it's a meltdown over an unmet sensory need- he's likely stimming by wanting to chew. Might be worth looking at chewable fidgets or jewellery to offer instead.
If he's stealing his sisters food, don't feed her when he's not eating. He won't be understanding why that need is met.
Its worth monitoring when the meltdowns are happening and seeing if something triggers it - unexpected change? Can't find a toy? TV programme ended?

If he has portage or SALT input, it might be worth working towards a goal of using picture communication cards or AAC. There's a great few Facebook groups that may help- Autism inclusivity and I'm an AAC user- ask me anything - both run by autistic adults. Verbal communication isn't the be all and end all. If it doesn't happen, that's OK.

Hello - he sounds like my son who is now in his twenties. I remember the early days well - they are hard and it does get easier, whatever happens.

Signing (Makaton) can work really well if your son can imitate. Mine could not until he was 8, so sign didn’t really become useful for him (as expressive communication) until then. It it worth doing though because it slows down your speech and helps indicate key words. My son responded well to PECS when he was little. There are some issues with PECS (their focus is on requesting rather than other ways of communicating) but they cut down the frustration and can be introduced even if a child cannot imitate. There are other AAC apps - eg LAMP (can get for the iPad) but again they are easier to introduce if you can model without any expectation of a response. Also worth looking at intensive interaction (can be quite calming) and Floortime - although that is harder to access in the U.K.

we toilet trained my son at 5. Luckily my mother helped as I had two other younger kids by the . The approach we took was to feed him and fill him with orange juice then sit him on the toilet and keep him there until he produced something (my mum was amazing at that - she would take all sorts of favourite items to keep him there and kept putting him back on when he got off!) and then give chocolate buttons (his favourite thing in the world at the time - won’t touch them now!). Eventually we ‘caught’ him enough times that he got it. When he started his special school they were very impressed that he was toilet trained! For now just point out to him when he has wet himself or pooed - it sounds as if he isn’t aware of his body physiology yet (this is very normal in a child with his diagnosis at his age).

Get in touch with portage and sendiass. They can help you find the right intervention.

Occupational Therapy by someone trained in Sensory Integration. Changed my kids life. He also had terrible meltdowns , so much so we could barely leave the house. Its also improved his speech and language.

Firstly it is hard, the 2 year stage anyway, with a non verbal autistic child it is harder.

Give yourself a break on the potty training, he is not ready if he does not have awareness of when he is weeing and pooing. You can talk to him when you change him to help with this and give lots of praise. If you notice him grabbing the front of his nappy for wees or hiding and squatting for poos then try to change as soon as possible so he gets used to not sitting in his waste and prefers the sensation of being clean.

My autistic DS who was completely non verbal until he saw SALT in nursery for speech and language therapy didn't come out of pull ups fully until Reception year at nearly age 5.

Picture exchange communication made a big difference to us, also the Hanen program More Than Words (there is a book) and a book on Sensory Processing Disorder called The Out of Sync Child that helped me understand some of his behaviours.

Sounds like a lot of the frustration is due to an inability to communicate what he wants and also not being able to complete a task he likes doing. My son was similar and once we got communication going through PECS his behaviour improved. He is now fully verbal albeit with slightly quirky sentence construction at times.

If lining up balls is frustrating him then try to give him something to line them up on to stop them rolling like matching coloured bean bags or give him some coloured blocks that can't roll. Cars were also a favourite for my son.

Introduce regular snack times and offer fluids regularly as sometimes it is thirst not hunger. I still find that my son is not always aware he is thirsty at nearly age 9 and will mistake thirst for hunger.

Another one here who found PECS to be effective. PP is right, in that it is mainly limited to requests but we found that it made that connection in his mind that 'communication with others is good, it brings gains' Mainly Jaffa cakes! But it opened the door for him, he's 14 now and never shuts up!

Also DS was in pull ups until he was in year one. One day he just got up from the couch and went upstairs to the loo! Unprompted and independently. And that was it, he had cracked it! It helped that he was usually unclothed so no hassle getting his pull-up off.

Thank you everyone for the help has anyone any links for pecs so I can buy them

You need the training to go with the resources because you need to teach your child how to request using PECS. There are online training courses you can do. Maybe see if anything is offered locally for parents before buying lots of materials.

I agree you need training for PECS - portage may be able to train you for free. We ended up paying for the two day course (parents half price iirc) and it was gooD but is not cheap.

@Lily189 hey how is your son doing?