Can autistic children regress with age?

[Toni27]

Hi our son is about to turn 4 and has moderate autism and over the last 2 days seems to have regressed. I'm devastated. I'm not sure if its because he is with holding his poos which really affects his behaviours, but tbh it feels like he has regressed entirely, he is very very echolalic and has become aggressive. He used to be aggressive before when he couldn't get his own way, he would bite his hands or bang his head but the last couple of days he has been hitting out me and head butting me over and over and biting me, and he has bitten two of his nursery staff. It's always when he can't do exactly as he wants to do. But he has always been very wilful. It's hard to describe but I do feel like his autism patterns have shifted and taken a turn for the worse. He's not so responsive. I'm gutted as he was making excellent progress and was happy and now he seems unhappy I feel like I'm losing my boy cos of the way he's been over the last 2/3 days. Do children become more autistic? Or do there autism patterns change with age?

My boy has gone through periods of seeming to get worse, but it has turned out he was feeling ill and a horrible bug was looming. Maybe could be feeling ill? See if calpol helps?

DD was totally horrific for a week until we discovered she had an ear infection, which she couldn't tell me about. She was in a lot of pain, but no temperature and no other symptoms, we just happened to have an audiology appointment that week and they spotted it.

DS goes through phases when he seems, more agitated and one of the things that always comes back worse is the echolalia. It's almost like he reverts to it a comforter in times of stress.

Like sickof says it is usually linked to feeling under the weather or if he is finding something challenging at school.

My son is 18, there have been numerous times when he appears far more Aspie than usual. They have all been linked to an increase in stress from another source.
Sometimes he's been ill, sometimes unhappy, sometimes he's in a complicated juggling scenario with too many variables and sometimes it's when he's so delighted and overstimulated he just can't control everything.
2 days may feel like forever, but you need to give it a bit more time and work out what else is going on before despairing. I know how distressing it is, but it could be temporary, so try and work out if there are other things that are affecting him.

We also had a real play around with ds's diet trying to figure out what he is intolerant to. So he was gluten free and dairy free for a while, then we reintroduced each separately, then figured it was the gluten so cut it back out again. The poor boy was all over the place. It was really upsetting to see him so out of sorts and worrying that it was a regression.

I believe so yes. DS is noticeably more autistic when stressed, angry, upset, unwell, anxious, excited, happy etc.

O thanks so much all your comments have really reassured me that this is probably not a permanent regression, fingers crossed. I will definetly try to find out the cause I imagine its his need to poo, but fear to go, but yes it could well be a bug looming I never thought of the ear thing in particular, his sister has been complaining of ear ache maybe he has a pain in his ear too. I'm taking the advice to give him cal pol and am thinking more about delving into the dairy or gluten intolerance investigations again. I did remove them from his diet last year, each for a month, but I was trying to stop his constipation and if I'm honest did not monitor how the foods affected his behaviour, at the time I was obsessed with getting to the cause of his bowel troubles and did not realise that other parents found that foods could actually change there child's behaviour. I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow, I just get so sad when I feel like the child I have just got to engage with me is slipping away again and I get scared I won't get him back. But from what you have all said I now hope there is a temporary underlying cause x

Sometimes you don't get to the root of it you just wake up a couple of weeks later and realise the echolalia has gone again and the house is calmer.

I always remind myself that my NT son also goes through behaviour changes when ill, stressed, tired etc but I'm able to be more rational when he does it because it's not related to asd and I'm not worrying that progress is being lost. You just accept it as part of regular behaviour.

Thanks:)

Yes me too! But I think I was panicking last night because I had never seen him regress quite so much. Hopefully a massive leap in progress will come out soon fingers crossed. Glad you find the same thing tho, i thought it was just my son that did that, I always think its like his brain is still being wired up and when new connections are made everything goes a bit haywire for a few days. Trouble is when he does regress I get really upset until I see signs of him bouncing back. He has been sleeping a lot, maybe it's a growth spurt. He was lively in the early hours of this morning tho, but then seems a bit calmer today than yesterday so I'm hoping this regression is going to right itself soon. I did ask him if he had any hurts and he said yes and put his hand near the back of his head so I have given him calpol today but he seems full of health, no temp or anything. Maybe a visit to the cranial osteopath ladies is on the cards again, he has been biting things with his back teeth on the right side of his mouth for a coule of weeks and teeth grinding a lot.