Newbie here with Autistic 3 year old

[AnnaMM]

Hi, I'm new to Mumsnet and have joined to find some support and information from other parents of kids with ASD.

Briefly, my son is 3 this week. He cannot speak, not a word although he makes lots of sounds. He does the classic Happy Dance, flapping, jumping etc. He has never indicated by pointing or show any interest in passing dogs, horses, cars, lorries etc while out and about.

There's so many other things he doesn't do which are on the checklists sent by NAS. It's a wonder it wasn't picked up sooner than 2 3/4 but the HV was more interested in a "wait and see" approach. Luckily we got to see a Speech Therapist at a drop-in clinic and she's pushing for a diagnosis. Pushing at the speed of a slightly motivated snail due to her work load but hopefully we'll have one before the end of this year!! We've been told 6-9 months from January.

He's due to start pre-school after Easter as they've said they will provide one-to-one and lots of support. We'll be doing a few drop-ins before then so they can assess him and be ready for him!

Thought I'd introduce myself before I come up with lots of questions and requests for help!

Hiya, and welcome. Ask away.

Are you happy with the pace and level/quality/timing of support?

Hi anna and welcome to the board.

I am glad you are getting some support from SALT and the preschool sounds good.

There are some really knowledgable people on here and there is always someone around, if there is anything you want to know ask away.

Feel free to come on here just to moan too if you feel the need, we all do sometimes.

Annamn - I started ABA when my son was 3; without it, I think he'd have remained non-verbal, as the state provision I was offered was v woolly and ineffective. Everything else I tried barely touched the sides; ABA got through. Happy to chat on here or on phone if you want to private message me? My boy sounds v similar to yours at a similar age.

Hi Anna, I have been on the SN boards for approx 16 months now and have got so much information and help from MN. My DS2 is now aged 4.6 and was diagnosed in March 2011. His diagnosis is HFA.
I would suggest the following, but you may already have done lots of these things;
Get in touch with your local early years specialist services in your local authority. They should be the ones that start the process to get your Ds a Statement of special educational needs, and offer advice on schools.
Get in touch with Portage from your local authorityand get help from them.
Phone the SEN team of your local authority and ask if there is a SN nursery that your DS can attend.
Start to keep a big file of everything.
Meet with the SENCO at nursery before he starts and tell them everything
Make lists of what he likes and what he can do, and what he cannot do and will need help with-useful for all of the above services
Have you seen a paed yet? It will be them who diagnose your DS, although the SALT were the first people to tell us that DS was ASD, although not their place to diagnose-if you need to you can always phone the secretary of the paed, and I cried to ours and she gave us a quicker appt, so we were able to get DS dx months before he started school, instead of during the summer before he started school-essential in getting other agencies involved.
Find out if there are any support groups in your area you can get involved in. Best wishes, and always come back to MN for a question or some support.

Hi, you have come at the right place, tough I am new as well and ds1 sounds similar but be sure you will get real life experience /advise from all of us at this board.

Hi and welcome Anna :)

Welcome Anna. I am an infrequent poster on the SN's board but I have learnt so much here, both practical and emotional support.
I am so grateful this place exists. It has helped me out of many a dark, uncertain hour.
Nice to meet you.

Really interested in the ABA. Where did you go for treatment? We live in Bucks. Thanks.

My nearly 5yr old is deaf & autistic with no language.

Sally bear, the ABA is great but hard to get started. Try and find a tutor on the VB Community website, or ABA tutorfinder, and go from there.

Hi Anna. Good to virtually meet you. Ditto others ref support and advice.

Thanks for the warm welcome.
Starlight, we'd love the pace to be quicker but know we have to push and push. So far the help has been offered we'll see how it all pans out.

What's ABA? Not heard of that. Finding out about PECS in half term, heard mixed reports. Some say they find it easier than speaking so won't bother, others say any way of communicating helps them and speech will follow. Had the same debate about signing last year. Deaf friends said it would help his speech. Unfortunately he didn't have a clue what we were doing so it never really got further than talking about it between ourselves.

Dietstarts, great suggestions. We're already in touch with the EYS and the preschool SEN, she will start the statement process with us after Easter. We're planning on mainstream as far as possible because they've had good results with other kids. There is a special school in our town but it's hard to get into and may not be right for him. He is fine with other kids at Toddler Group, pretty much ignores the smaller ones altogether and ignores the bigger ones unless they have a biscuit in their hand and aren't guarding it closely enough! He did "tell" one of the helpers to get on with putting the chairs away last week, she'd stopped and he went up behind her and pushed her towards the chair then tried to move them both to the wall!

Had to laught at the big file and the list - it was the first thing I said to hubby when all this started - "I'm going to need a bigger folder". Other friends have said the same thing, you need a folder! I have a list also, mostly who I chased and when. I added two pages of things to the initial report the SALT did on him, all stuff she'd been told but hadn't written down.

We're on the waiting list for the Paed and a child psychologist, have been told 6-9 months from the beginning of this year but will push for earlier once he's at pre-school. The SALT was very careful not to diagnose, I was pushing her and she said "what are you trying to suggest might be the problem?" I said "either Autism or GDD" and she then started saying how it wasn't GDD neither is it a pure SAL problem and that he was showing all the signs of classic Autism and has accepted that ever since.

Phew. It's hard work this!

Hi Anna, this board was a lifesaver for me :)

Things I wish I'd known about when ds2 was 3: dietary intervention, he's now gluten and casein free and it made a lot of difference for him, and intensive therapy, aba has been mentioned, we did son-rise and loved it. I think all of them work better the sooner you can start, if that's something you feel you want to do. And welcome!