My 5-year-old diagnosed with an ASD

[bionicley]

My son(5)has been diagnosed with an ASD a couple of months ago. He was very slow to talk but since starting school has made much progress. I have been attending the Early Bird Plus programme but feel that it could all have been covered in one session and that not much of it is relevant to my son. The whole idea of the spectrum is so vague.
Can anybody suggest any good books that might give me a little more insight? Over the years we have become aware that this son is 'different' and we have developed coping and helping strategies. His school is fantastic and sensitive to his needs.
His main problems are with language and social interaction.
I'd really appreciate any ideas. Feeling confused and a little lost.

Hi Bionicley,

You might also want to post on the special needs board here is seems to be more active and has a lot of families in your situation. My DS was also diagnosed at age 5, a year ago, and mainly has issues with language (though it turned out that he had motor and medical issues as well, and addressing these have really helped him make progress overall).

The trouble with a lot of the literature is that because the spectrum is so broad, you will almost necessarily end up reading a lot that does not apply to your child depending on where he is on the spectrum. My DS is on the high-functioning end of things, and the most useful book I have read is A Parent's Guide to Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism by Sally Ozonoff, Geraldine Dawson and James McPartland, Guildford Press 2002. I bought it at Waterstones but I'm sure you can order it from Amazon.

You are very lucky to have a good school environment - that's really half the battle.

Best of luck.

Thanks, I'll do that. I suppose what I don't understand is why so many different troubles are lumped together and called 'autism'

I'm currently reading Autism For Dummies (ISBN 0-7645-2547-60 . It seems quite good so far as a general introductory book to ASD.

I care for a child (nearly 5 years old) who I suspect may be like your ds, was non-verbal though recently speech has improved a lot. Like you I am starting to read books around the subject, so keen to know what books are good.

I use a form of ABA called VB - Verbal Behaviour - and there is also another branch called RDI, or Relationship development integration. I have found them fantastic for my ASD 4 year old in terms of behaviour and speech. If you go onto the VB community website you can find out a bit more, but the VB basically taught my son to speak by using his own motivation - one example: he loves swings, but we would not push him till he vocalised "pu", at first prompted and now he does it naturally. I am a bit manic about telling people about this program, as I'm not sure he'd be making progress at all if it weren't for ABA. Books by Simon Baron-Cohen on autism are always succinct and good I find. Hope some of that helps.