How severe is his autism?

[autisticbabybear]

DS is 2.8 years old and diagnosed with classic autism. So far he's completely nonverbal. His developmental delay is very obvious - he is more like a baby than a toddler. His therapist paints a bleak picture of the future, basically tellling me DS will never be able to live independently while another one is more optimistic and envisages him talking at some point in the future.

I guess I will be able to deal with both outcomes in the long run, but at the moment I really need to know how severe DS is. I need to know where we stand now so I can go on without false hope - but stay motivated nevertheless. Could you please, please tell me honestly, without sparing my feelings, wether you think DS is perhaps on the severe end of moderate, on the moderate side of severe autism, or on the severe end of severe autism?

DS is very gentle. He is the least aggressive child you can imagine and has never hurt/hit/kicked anyone. He is very placid and doesn't throw any tantrums. He cries when frustrated, but he calms immediately when being cuddled. He is a fussy eater but has no other sensory issues. He seeks comfort when scared or hurt and wants to be held when he wakes up at night. He is very curious and likes to explore new things or environments. He obeys when being told no. He has a fantastic memory and remembers strange places und complicated routes for a long time. There is absolutely no self-stimulation, no stimming of any sort. He doesn't care about routines or changes.

He makes lots of noises like growling and some sort of babbling, but doesn't talk. His receptive language seems to be limited to just a few sentences although he sometimes surprises me by understanding more than I would have given him credit for. He doesn't know how to play with toys and doesn't understand even simple ones like a very basic shape sorter. He lines his toys up for a few moments, but mostly he just moves them around while making noises. Reading a book or even looking at a picture is impossible.
Sometimes there is inappropriate laughter without any obvious cause, mainly while driving in the car. He very rarely reacts to being called. His eye contact is poor. Sometimes we have uninterrupted eye contact for one or two minutes during playing "The wheels on the bus", but on other days he barely glances at us.
He doesn't point and completely ignores other children. He doesn't imitiate. His only way of communicating is pulling us somewhere (the door, a cupboard) or bringing us something we should open for him (like a packet of biscuits). There is absolutely no back-and-forth-interaction.

What do you think? I'd be so grateful for your advice.

To get to EHCP level both my boys needed something at severe level to reach threshold. In both cases it's severe language difficulties. That is how it's worded in both their docs.

We couldn't have complex needs put in, it was objected at tribunal.

It's pretty hard producing a EHCP if child is at ECHP level without trying to quantify their level of need.

In my youngest sons case apart from his language problems it doesn't explain the level of his needs. It could be talking about a child that would cope well in mainstream.

It just says he has ASD.

I guess it works both ways.

I don't know how people can explain learning difficulties without quantities. Maybe my county is unique but the SN schools are listed based on level on learning diffulties. I viewed a MDL school who thought my ds was above their threshold without meeting him or reading his paperwork. I thought he was below. In the end I couldn't have input into where he went as I didn't know his learning difficulties. It was chosen for me and all I can do I trust it's the right place. I can't make a informed dession beyound that it seems like a nice place and I don't think he can cope in mainstream.

Anyway the wording debate is totally lost on me. I can't get wound up about it. Being dyslexic, not really getting the finer points of words meanings and origins is lost on me. Having learning difficulties myself I find it hard to gets words out to explain needs and wants. I guess every word gives stigma and Offense.

I feel like I should have some training to navigate the pitfalls of living with two kids with asd. It's not a world I understand at all and I never will.

It's possibly better not to say anything.

For what it's worth, my DS sounds very like yours at that age. He's now 3.6 and is talking (his language is delayed and disordered but we can have simple mini conversations now), understanding a fair amount, loves his mainstream nursery and loves interacting with other children (although he's not very good at it yet), is very funny, advanced at numbers, letters, etc for his age and is generally a happy little boy.

I once posted saying how hard it was not to know where on the spectrum he is and what to expect for the future. Someone wise replied that she had two ASD children and that she worried much more about the high functioning one who had much more awareness of his differences and was therefore much less happy than the more severely affected child.

I know it's hard though not to know what the future will hold. I think the only thing you can focus on is what you can do to make your child as happy as possible and to reach the best of his abilities.

But I would definitely say your DS is too young for anyone to be predicting how he will be as an adult.

Sorry, I know this thread is ancient and the OP's probably not even around any more but her son sounds almost exactly like my youngest DS who's just turned 3, he's on the waiting list for an ASD diagnosis but it's just a formality really (I'm autistic myself and so is his elder brother but we're both what formerly would have been called "high functioning"/Asperger's and both of us were speaking in full sentences before 2). Like the OP he doesn't display any aggressive or self-injurious behaviours at all, he's very affectionate and cuddly with decent eye contact and often sits playing with his toys or looking at books pretty calmly (although doesn't really play with them appropriately), but he's still non-verbal, only communicates by hand leading and is very much still like a 12-18 month old baby in most other aspects of his development. He does stim when he's happy/excited by flapping his hands or occasionally spinning but this isn't particularly frequent or excessive. He didn't walk until 23 months old and is still significantly behind with his gross and fine motor skills. He isn't afraid of other children and has never hit out at another child but he essentially ignores them and won't really play or interact with them at all.

Realistically, without sparing my feelings at all, if you had a child that presented similarly to mine or the OP's at a similar age and they're now a few years older, how severe would you say their ASD ended up being in all honesty (sorry, I know some people don't like to discuss autism in terms of levels of severity any more as all neurodiverse people have their own struggles as I well know, but hopefully you can see what I'm saying and that I'm not intending to cause any offence by asking this)?

Again, I'm really sorry to resurrect a zombie thread but I'd really appreciate hearing any and all outcomes for children who were similar to mine at about 3 that are now perhaps a few years further down the line, just so that I can prepare myself to give my DS as much support as I possibly can. Thank you so much :)