DS might be special needs

[MarniePaysley]

Honestly, I'm slightly at my wits end and I have no idea what to do next. DS turned 4 last week and I'm really starting to panic over him. DS' main issue is that he can't understand 90% of the things around him, words like 'No, Yes, Stop' mean absolutely nothing to him, he can talk but only singular words, he can't string sentences together at all, his eyes tend to glaze over people, it's extraordinarily hard to capture his attention and then to keep it for longer then a few seconds is all but impossible.

He can distinguish colours and pictures and he can say the alphabet and he recognises DH and I but aunts, uncles, cousins he forgets the moment they walk out the door and he has so much energy that it's quite shocking, he won't stop running and I mean that literally, when we're at home, he'll run through the hallways and up and down the stairs and out into the garden, it got so bad that we had to put individual locks in every room because keeping an eye on him was all but impossible, if he's in one room, he'll just run around in a circle and it's even worse outside, he can't comprehend the dangers of strangers or cars, he'll struggle in my arms until he's free and then he'll just keep running. If he sets his mind on something, like ringing the doorbell then he'll do it for hours.

When he was two, his childminder suggested that something wasn't quite right and afraid that DH and I would get angry, she wrote down a list of things that had worried her in a letter, explaining each point in detail and why she thought it was worth getting checked out. e.g His energy doesn't decrease at all, he'll repeat your words but not understand them, he'll see a child on the swings at the park and to him they don't exist so he'll try to use the swing as well, danger or pain don't register, he'll hurt himself and he won't realise it at all.

DS is our first and only child and we'd assumed his behaviour was just a little odd but nothing too serious, so we'd never worried till then, we got him checked out and he was immediately put into speech and therapy lessons, the lessons weren't as helpful as we'd originally hoped and after 6 weeks we were told to bring him back in two years if he was still struggling to speak, so this summer we took him back and it was recommended we put him in a nursery, so he could be observed by professionals and interact with other children on a regular basis, so DH and I enrolled him part time in a nursery that the GP recommend and DS started on Monday, the nursery is absolutely perfect, the staff are more then equipped to handle DS.

I worried DS would simply be forgotten amongst the masses but from the moment his place was confirmed, the nursery has just proven to be amazing. They contacted the GP to get DS' records, organised three home visits to observe DS and took us over to the nursery at the end of August on two separate occasions so DS wouldn't be too bewildered, (although I think it was more for my benefit then DS'). So on the first day I dropped off DS, I was allowed to stay and observe from a distance and then on Wednesday I was gently asked to leave, I'd hoped DS would say bye and realise that I was leaving, but he was far too preoccupied to even notice I'd gone, which is better then him crying but it was the fact that he didn't fully comprehend that he was going to be left alone with strangers that bothered me, I could leave him on a train full of people and he still wouldn't understand that I was leaving him alone.

As much as I would love someone to say, DS is completely healthy, I'm at a point now where I just need someone to say we know what the problem is and how you can help him; because next year he starts school and he struggles with just sitting on a chair or realising someone is talking to him, so I don't even want to think about how he'll cope in a classroom environment

IMO, he should also be assessed by an educational psychologist - to see what his memory, among other things is like.

This is not to say this is what your son has. It could be a number of things.DD paid no attention when we were talking to her up to the age of 3. We could barely understand a word she said, even at a one word level - because her version of the word sounded so different to the actual word. Anyway, the speech therapist told me on the first day that DD had not realised that language is meant to be communication - she thought we all just opened our mouths to spout jargon at each other, so that was what she did. She had all the attention span of a butterfly, and she never paid attention to us long enough to learn the language anyway. She had not realised what eye contact was for.

The speech therapist told me to teach her eye contact by getting hold of her chin and moving her face in my direction, until I could make eye contact with her before I started talking. I paid for private therapy for 6 months, to teach her all sorts of stuff - like I had to give her choices, such as ham or cheese sandwiches for lunch, but if she chose onion, then make her live with her choice. To teach her that language had an effect on her world.

She would not even sit down long enough to eat; she just ran around the room at meal times, while I chased after her to push food into her mouth - she was getting thinner and thinner. A consultant psychiatrist told me, with regard to the eating, that the key issue was getting calories into her. She might starve before she got the idea of sitting down to eat, if we took a hardline attitude that she'd sit down and eat if she were hungry. So, he told me to promise her chocolate buttons if she ate a sandwich. When we could get her to eat; promise her chocolate buttons if she sat down and ate. He assured me this would not store up an eating disorder for the future, because once she got used to sitting down to eat, we could replace the chocolate buttons with praise. Incidentally, he considered she did not have ADD, but rather her attention was commensurate with her cognitive development (delayed due to the language disorder).

I would set up a meeting with the senco at the nursery for a couple of weeks time, when they have got to know your son a little more. I would assume that they would ask for the early years improvement advisor to have a look at your son. This will highlight difficulties and suggest referrals to different agencies, all with your permission. The nursery sound good though so I'm sure they will put all this in place.
Developmental paediatrician referral through your gp is also a good idea.

I agree that it's important to have DS seen by a developmental paediatrician - make a list of everything you are concerned about and take it to your GP, insisting on a referral. Unfortunately, the NHS can be very slow in relation to these matters - and I wasn't at all impressed by the NHS developmental paediatrician we did see, who told me my DS was definitely not on the autism spectrum - 3 weeks after that, a private developmental paediatrician told us he was definitely autistic and she had no doubt about it whatsoever (and he definitely is).

So my advice would be to go private if you can but, if that's not possible, make sure you don't get fobbed off by the NHS. I do think from your description that there are some red flags there and, if it turns out there is a problem, the best thing you can do is to get help as early as possible.

All the best.

I think your son will benefit from ABA therapy.

My daughter was similar at the age of 2, she's 4 now and makes back to forward conversations...I so wish I started ABA then.

Push for a diagnosis but I wouldn't wait around for their therapy, try and kick start things like statement, DLA on your own