Two questions for ASD mum's

[raffle]

Ok, sort of new to the ASD world and the NHS so, my GP has refused to prescribe omega 3 for PJ, is this usual? Don't want to cause a fight if actually it's common practice to refuse to prescribe?

And secondly, what sources of support were you able to access in the first few months post dx? We have been told it'll be approx 8 months until we can get on an earlybirds course and it'll be 6 months plus for our first appointment with the Autism specific nurse, I feel we are being left to muddle through without specific ASD advice. We do see a Portage worker and SALT but no ASD specialist. Is this normal?

Thank you ladies

Ok, sold!
Will chat with DH, she sounds great. Thanks for you help, it's so confusing for parents of a recently diagnosed child, so I appreciate everyone's input.

HI, I used 1, 2, 3 Magic with my ds when he REALLY began kicking off. It is behaviour based. Basically the premise is that you tell the child that this is what is going to happen: The frist time they do something 'wrong' you say 1, the second time 2 and at 3 they go to 'time out' for a minute for each year of their life. You don't argue, discuss or explain and time out doesn't begin until they stop yelling.

All I will say is that I really took on board the being calm and not yelling part ( well, I tried to....) but the time out thing?........... Even after 6 weeks of being consistent DS's time out should have been 3 mins but was taking up to an hour and I spent most of that holding the door closed........... I stopped and began to do 'time in' instead where I take him to his room and sit with him until he is calm.

It was just my experience however and someone will be along later to say they had the opposite experience.

Counting helps me BUT ds's worst meltdowns/hyper stuff is normally caused partly by his noise sensitivities so being sent to time out would often be seen by him as a reward.

I find being creative & flexible on the final consequence depending on the situation with the "time out" more effective. The counting itself has a huge effect as DS hates me being upset with him, but doesn't always register that what he is doing is unacceptable in the heat of the moment. My starting to count seems to pull him up short & make him stop and think. I just have to be careful not to overuse it or it will lose it's effectiveness.

123 magic IS very helpful to read sometimes with regards to parental attitudes. I read that chapter just to keep myself on the straight and narrow of calm and supportive after a really trying day sometimes.

Personally (and I have never read the book) I don't see the point in giving a child the count of 3.

There is a lot wrong with my ds' education for a variety of reasons, but his nursery teacher has a policy of 'one ask' which I agree with. DS and all the children in his MS class understand it.

If you give 3, they'll take 3, so just give 1?

Unless it isn't about the child's behaviour at all, but about the parent calming down and regulating their own behaviour. That is the only purpose I can see. Frankly, if I ask my ds to stop something I expect him to stop. How on earth does counting to 3 help when he is running into the road?

1-2-3 works a treat on DS2 (NT). Kate, if it works well, then you don't need to get to 3. DS2 generally tells me to stop counting once I say 1, and then goes to do whatever it it is I've asked him to do (or stop if its something he shouldn't be doing). I agree it isn't appropriate for dangerous things like running away.

Unfortunately, like Leonie's DD, DS1 finishes the counting for you and thinks its a big game. Time out also has no effect whatsoever and I spent the entire time trying to keep him there.

star - very useful link. I might look into her too if we continue having problems that we can't deal with.

We had input for a few weeks from NAS Befriender service but the lady was a student and had to ehad back home when course ended and we never heard from them again (this was about 3 years ago now so assume we were scratched from list?)

Just had carer's assessment but doesn't look promising.
Too much waffle about coping well, always a bad sign. We did get holiday club- well, every child in county did but Sn kids got TA supervision. That's been reduced to two hours universally (couldn't they have at least asked if people would pay? We woudl have, at lest something). As the boy's needs eman they have to attend separate clubs, and all teh clubs are based away from our little town, we have had to ditrch ds1's provision. Just doing ds3's means we spend 2 hours in the car for a 2 hours scheme! With ds1 I'd be trying to do and afford 4 hours travel daily with very annoyed ds2 and a toddler being assessed soon with me. Simply a no go.

Provision people using our case as an example to try and get thier funding back at least for sn famillies but chances surely very low indeed.

The three best places for advice have been here by a long way, SN rugby for lcoal stuff, and am doing a related uni course through which I got to know someone who teahces at a very under publicised state funded ASD Comp base lcoally, and now ds1 has a aplce there in September. Yay!

We start earlybird in May for ds3, mainly for DH's benefit.

Oh and yes 1 2 3 works for us usually (not in meltdowns but then...). Sometimes for other kids it works better backwards. Who knows why?

Somene said why give three.

Well it depends on the child but many with ASD have a processing delay so cannot physically comply in one go. It just takes their brain too long to sort out the messages; effectively it's 1-stop; 2- get brain processing; 3- carry out messages.

I find here on one they stop, and by three they have processed what needs to change. It does take them time to build that puzzle but 1 is a cue now for concentrate which is pretty positive IMO.