Does this resonate with anyone?

[CollyWombles]

My DS is now 8yo. Ever since nursery there has been issues. The nursery told me they had their own special routine with ds. When he started school things quickly went downhill. He struggled to be in a class room, regularly ran out of class or out of school itself. He hates loud noises, strong smells and is very quick to anger.

In P2 he developed a close bond with the teacher who really worked with him and he began to settle at school, still leaving the class room but going to a spot he had agreed with the teacher.

In P3 he had a new teacher and everything got worse again, this time to the point the school made the decision to move him permanently to their SN room. He enjoys the SN room and has spent P4 there.

He, however, is barely progressing academically. The SN room have worked hard with him socially, academically only when they can get him to take part.

At home, he will not sleep in a room on his own, if his brother has a sleepover my ds gets distressed about being in a room alone so sleeps in his sister's room. When his brother is home, they share a bed even though I have bunk beds. My DS will not be in any room on his own, he wants someone with him all the time.

He can get dressed fine himself if clothes are given to him, but gets distressed if he is told to get clothes out of his bedroom drawer. He cannot read, he cannot tie shoe laces and generally I feel his mental age is more of that of a five year old than an 8 year old.

A form was submitted last year by the school and myself for a diagnosis but nothing has come back.

I'm starting to worry that I'm the problem. I have 4dc and fairly sure I've raised them all the same, but ds is my youngest and maybe I've babied him. We are very close and he responds better to me than anyone else, but in a way, it makes me afraid to push him a bit, Incase he stops responding even to me.

He is a very funny, smart little boy and I'm so worried about his future. I want to help him with reading as he is always asking me to read words to him or spell something but he just shuts down with a book. He loves computers however, I wondered if anyone knows of any good online reading programs/games that might benefit him.

Sorry it's so long, it's like when he was 5, I thought he would grow out of it as such, now he is going into primary 5 after the summer and seems so far behind.

. I would reckon that as he is the last of four children it is highly unlikely that you are the problem. This is not to say you might need to use different strategies to parent a child with this sort of issue (we certainly have had to) but this is different from cause. There are several things that resonate in your post that are similar to my two - who also started to have similar issues in juniors & received a diagnosis of an ASC at age ten. The behaviour suggests a lot of anxiety and this maybe the barrier to learning - it might also be worth asking for a SALT assessment to see if there are processing or language difficulties. I would also go to your GP and ask for a referral to a paediatrician to ask for assessment again - sadly it is not unusual that you have to ask several times before it happens (it certainly was like that for us).

On the reading front, try Reading Eggs on the iPad/computer. It’s quite fun, staged and has built in rewards. My children like it, and DS1 was addicted when he was learning to read.

We do parent our youngest differently. But that would not explain the huge differences you can see between him and the other DC. And we have to parent or NT DC differently from our ASD children. But don’t go down the route of blaming yourself.

Thank you, I guess I feel guilty as I've just left things in the hands of the school rather than pushed for more. I think deep down I thought it was something he would grow out of. My eldest daughter is very mild aspergers but DS is worlds away in how he acts.

I will make an appointment with the GP asap and push for assessment. I spoke to DS this morning about a reading app and he likes the sound of it.

Ds is very anxious yes, he has ladybug soft toys we call his beebee's that he mirrors his anxiety through as such. His ladybug toys are always strong and fearless and nothing can hurt them as my DS says.