ASD/ADHD child and baby

[henryhsmum]

Hi,

I have a 6 year old DS who has autism and ADHD. He is quite affected by his autism but he is also empathetic and verbal and quite outgoing (all though lacking understanding of social norms) . His ADHD is quite severe but medication does help.

We have always wanted 2 children but if I honest, a combination of DS's difficulties, his traumatic birth and afterbirth seizures for myself frightens me.

I was just wondering what other people's experiences are of how their SN's child have coped with a sibling and how you have coped! I would be also be interested to know how likely it is that a 2nd child would also have autism and/or ADHD?

DS2 is 6yo with ADHD/ASD (with a few more things thrown in for good measure lol), and DS3 is 3yo and NT.

He has struggled here and there, but on the whole they tend to react mostly like any other siblings - getting along one minute and arguing/fighting the next. At the moment, I'd say DS2 is socially in the same arena as DS3 in some areas, so they both tend to be quite stubborn - the fights can be unbelievable!

We don't ever leave them in the same room together, simply because any physical altercation can be complicated by DS2 not realising that something he does could be dangerous to DS3. He has no impulse control and could lash out physically at DS3 with no warning.

That sounds dreadful, doesn't it? But it's not like it's a war zone all the time - with careful planning and following simple safety rules in the house, it's not bad. They are both sitting next to each other on the sofa right now, eating popcorn while watching cartoons on the television (and DS2 is also playing his DS game). No arguments at the moment... until DS3 decides to nick some of DS2's popcorn or touch his DS. Then it's my job to defuse it somewhat. But then, to some extent, that's typical of siblings, isn't it?

I will say that we were very careful not to make any big changes around the time DS3 was born and made sure DS2's daily routine was still followed very closely. I don't really recall any issues with jealousy cropping up other than typical minor sibling stuff.

I have two children with ASD. Ds is very severely affected and seems to also have severe learning disabilities. Dd is more able but is still very autistic although she is in mainstream with support. it is a very tough decision. I think it depends on your family history tbh. although I didn't recognise it at the time I am pretty convinced that dp has aspergers and therefore there is a pretty good chance that any child of ours would have ASD. having said that dd has been a joy to look after and though I obviously regret her difficulties massively, I don't regret deciding to have two children. they don't get on that well tbh but we manage and if anything my experience with ds has led me to make less mistakes with managing dd and preempt any problems.

That's really interesting. As to family history we have no family history of ADHD. I possibly have very mild aspergers myself but it has never really affected me. I would say my son's primary problem is his ADHD although the autism is still very much present. Now we have the ADHD diagnosis I am hoping that we can address a lot of the autism with ABA therapy as when he is on Ritalin he does pay attention! He is still quite severely affected - he gets full time 1:1 in mainstream and support run holidays, funded day LEA. He has until now been in special school and they were not recommending mainstream but I pushed for it and ABA therapy.

I have heard girls often cope better with autism and tend to be milder than boys.

henryhsmum we're the opposite here. DS2 is just moving into a SS after being in ms for reception and yr 1, and we pushed for the SS. He just cannot cope with the larger class sizes at MS. He's not medicated for his ADHD, although it's been suggested. He has quite a few tics and other health problems, and we are loathe to introduce medication that may increase his tics or complicate his health further.

Reading that back, I don't want you to think I'm criticising your choices, by the way. I just think it's interesting how all of us on the board are moving here and there back and forth based on our children's needs.

DS2 had FT 1:1 at MS, but it just wasn't enough. We're really looking forward to seeing how he adapts to the SS, as we think it will be very good for him.

As far as having another baby, we wouldn't at this point, simply because we are older parents now, and not at a point where we want to have any more. If we were younger, then I would just make sure (if possible) that there was a good gap between DS3 and another child.

Triggles- I am not offended don't worry. I think it has to be about what is right for the child. I am very lucky in that we live in a village and my DS will be in a combined Reception/Y1/Y2 class. He'll be Y2 and there will be 4 children in his year group and only 15 in the class in total! He had 12 in his class at SS. The head teacher is very forward thinking and has welcomed him going there with ABA. I don't think I would have moved him to somewhere with larger classes. Tbh we had some bad experiences with SS - they denied point blank that he had ADHD and refused to fill out the diagnostic questionnaire. Then we he saw the child psychiatrist within 5 mins of being his obvious he said to me 'if he doesn't have ADHD then I'm a banana'. I guess I was very annoyed with his SS as a result as they failed to spot that he has very bad ADHD and worse delayed the diagnosis. I found that they had more of a one size fits all approach at SS but at mainstream they are really keen to understand his needs and work with him.

I think it all comes down very much to individual experiences and what suits the individual child so there is no right or wrong regarding SS vs mainstream

I hate autocorrect - I meant within 5 mins of being the psychiatrists office

I think a lot of the choice comes down to the individual school and how helpful they are. One reason I chose ABA is because it is 50 weeks per year and we were very fortunate that the LEA Therefore funded 10 hrs per week in the holidays as well as term times. Frankly I had enough of his special school so ABA also meant their outreach service isn't involved and instead we get support from an ABA case worker who advises us and school and is brilliant!

Yes, so true about each individual school. His MS primary was lovely - they bent over backwards to meet his needs, it just wasn't enough. There were 25 children in his class and it was just too much distraction and distress/overload for him. At this SS, there will be 6 in his class. His first comment when he saw it was "I like it. It's quiet."

We thought it worked so well we even had a third child

Ours get on very well -7and6...yes they argue but nothing more or less than NT siblings!! I actually like it when they argue as it reminds me of the time our daughter was oblivious she had a brother and he meant nothing to her. She will now ask him for help and yesterday they were working together to build a den. We had our 2 close together (11 months between them) although we new at a very early age (4 days) that our daughter had ASD we didn't have time to think of the difficulties a sibling might bring. I am really glad we did have another as he has been the best gift ever for her as she watches him, copies him and also follows his sentence structure. We are now thinking of having another baby but my worry is having another child with ASD, although we cope well at the moment I do worry how we would cope and give equal attention to the children. I think the chances vary a lot on having another with ASD and on every course I go on the they give different ratio. Good luck with what you decide.

It's really interesting. I think DS would accept another sibling . He does have 2 older step siblings who he adores but he is very close to me and I worry he will be a bit jealous. In the past he has told me when I pick up babies to 'put the baby down'!

If I am honest what worries me most is having another child with ASD and ADHD and how to cope. I also worry about if I am being selfish towards DS by having another child as I am putting myself first. Silly I know but I get myself stressed about things like that

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14507532

The link is to an article about the risk of autism in siblings. So, 26% of male siblings and 9% of female siblings seems to be the risk. It does depend on the reason for your DS's ASD, whether it was a chance mutation of a gene, or an inherited gene, or due to some other environmental reason. Unfortunately, no-one really knows, unless you have obviously 'spectrummy' relatives, and the reasons could easily be a combination of the above or something else. If the autism was inherited, the risk could be higher, but if a chance mutation, lower, etc.

Just reading your later post, you feel you may have AS, yourself? It is a risk, but having up to date stats should help you gauge it. One of the problems is not knowing, if a sibling was to be affected, how severe or mild it may be. My friend's DS has an ADHD DX with an uncle with AS, and the 2 are often co-morbid.