Advice re DP in denial of ASD

[chubbymomie2012]

My 27 month ok is awaiting formal diagnosis for ASD. We are having private speech therapy and she agrees with me that he is almost certainly ASD. All the signs are there and as far as I'm concerned a diagnosis is just a formality. However my partner disagrees. He thinks ds's only problem
Is delayed speech. He is oblivious to all the other signs. Tries to explain them all away. What is the best way to deal with this? Have u any experience of this?

stick an easy read in the loo!?

I'm sorry that you're going through this. It must be very tough.

My Dp still doesnt really get it, tbf. He did eventually start to come to appointments with me after CAMHS insisted that he attended.

He has never read a book or got on board with any strategied that introdruce.

It is very wearing and frustrating at times because his life would be much less stressful if he used the techniques to manage her behaviour.

Hey ho... hope your Dp gets it eventually

It's very common, chubby. They just don't see as much of them as the primary carer, they don't see their peers for comparison, and some see it as reflecting in them, somehow. He's in the denial stage of grief, he'll come round eventually. If he's not being supportive, come here instead.

Reflecting on them.

Oh dear, I think I broke my own record for typos then

he hasnt told any of his family about ds's problems or his therapy and whenninread him bits out of the "More than words" book he just says that doesnt apply to us. or will blatantly say I disagree! its bloody frustrating! so do i let him drift in a bubble or do i forcebhim to accept it?

Well, I'll see if I can find it, but I read some research somewhere that showed prognosis was very much linked to parental acceptance, which is then linked to intervention.

My DP didnt see it for years. But then, he was at work, and also didn't spend much time with other kids to compare. For him, was 'just DC, you know what he's like' I dont think he was really on board until we hit crisis point, and then he was wavering until we did the GAD assessment and he saw how highly he was scoring.

I think it'll just take time. Can you get him to meet other DC who are NT, so he can see the difference?

men are funny things. They see disability as a slight on their virility.

So long as you accept it and start using interventions, if you are the primary carer, that's the most important thing. More than Words is excellent BTW.

I understand how you feel, it was obvious to me from about 18 months that dd had difficulties but DP would never acknowledge this and it would lead to arguments whenever we discussed it, he would say that I was overreacting, she was still young and would catch up etc and, like you say, he would say its just speech problem when it was clear to me it wasn't (dd was in her own world a lot and totally ignored people talking to her, wouldn't respond to her name, didn't point etc).
I stopped talking to him about my concerns and wrote about things I needed to talk about on here and learned how to start helping my dd anyway. Things are a bit better now 2years later as we have seen paediatrician and dd has started in an assesment unit rather than mainstream school on her advice so he has had to accept that things are not 100% right. She hasn't been diagnosed asd as paed is unsure as yet but has said dd has asd traits such as eye contact, social issues and very behind in speech and understanding.
Even now though he still makes comments that I just have to bite my tounge to if I can, like 'but she's ok now isn't she' because she can say a few more words now!
I think it takes some people longer to accept things, I just made sure DP came to all paediatrician appointments and read all reports so he could hear it from other people and so couldn't put it down to me overreacting!

Hi denial is a funny thing, I honestly think a part of the brain actually closes down. I came out of denial about a year ago, and by the time our son was diagnosed I was desperate to get the formality out of the way. My hub is prob a good 6 months to a year behind me. I think he has only very recently read the big fat file on DS, he couldn't bear to, I said fine just read it when you are ready and he has now. In some ways he doesn't have a clue how to deal with DS, particularly the anxiety and communication side. But he is more confident at taking him out than me and gets better results than me, he is less self conscious. I think he is still a bit in denial still, it's made him very focused on getting stuff done in the house lol so I am putting up with for a bit longer. I'd just push forward with it all and let him catch up in his own time

osospecial your situation sounds the same as mine. my dp will happily go to any apts but he will not accept that there could be deeper issues untill we see doc. sadly the waiting times here in northern ireland are desperate. i think the main issue we argue about is how to discipline ds. whats terrible twos and whats ASD? thats my question. dp jst thinks hes a holy terror! bloody men!

I think they just take longer to see it - for me, it became obvious when I realised I was the only mum having these conversations with school, that it became clearer to me because I just spent more time with DS.

Our pinch point was an outing to the theatre (fine) then pizza (ok ish) followed by a quick dash to the supermarket (complete & utter disaster!) the penny dropped & everything that I had been saying was then obviously true not just me being neurotic

It's hard on everyone. Chin up