Confused glue ear or asd

[minimalist99]

I have a 3.5 year old DS who is awaiting a diagnosis. He is due to start montessori nursery in a couple of days. We are having him seen by a private OT who then expressed concerns that he might be HF asd and we were then directed towarda a community peadatric consultant.

During our initial appointment with the doc he said from the short time he spent with our DS that there is a likelihood he is on the spectrum. My son has a history of sore throats,ear infections and just in general he has a poor immune system and gets poorly far more than his younger sis. He was referred to the GP to an audiologist who confirmed he had glue ear and that he may need grommets.

My question is whether the glue ear is causing him to display autistic traits or whether he is on the spectrum. I am struggling to cope with his behaviour and my gut instinct is all confused. Either way I adore him and I want to help him in every way possible.

Has anyone experienced this before.

Anecdotally, children with additional needs do tend to have lower immune systems than the average child. If he can't hear properly I suppose it could explain some things. My daughter has partial hearing loss, asd and a rare syndrome which affects central processing. I spend most of my time trying to figure out a) has she heard me? B) has she understood me? C)is she too distracted to pay attention to me? It can be frustrating but I've just learned to adjust. Eg all iPads/tv and the like are paused before I try and talk to her then I ask her to put down anything she's holding. Once I've spoken I ask her if she's heard and understood me.

It's just some of the things that we see him doing just doesn't match up with a child with glue ear unless I am mistaken an example of these things are :

1. repetitive play and obsessive interest in all forms of transport. He organises the cars in more or less the same way every time he plays with his matchbox cars at home or elsewhere
2. social awkwardness he is not able to play with children but rather play with adults but even then he doesn't want the adult to partake in the game he narrates the activities and the adult has to just sit there and play along with him
3. he doesn't understand the concept of a joke he takes the literal meaning of everything.
4. doesn't like eye contact
5. walks off whilst in public places or we are out and about.

I just feel like I am over analysing everything sometimes and other times I feel like I am not doing enough to help him.

Maybe adults' speech is clearer so he can understand more. Plus they are often not so generally noisy.

Dd1 had lots of ear infections at 3yo. Soon after having mmr and hand foot and mouth. Plus croup several times.

A lot of ear infections is food allergy related. (I think she is soya allergic). It causes reflux. Also she gets really impacted ear wax so that can cause a cough.
For her it has improved as she has gotten ill less frequently. Now 6yo she didnt get one last winter.

Ear infections can cause adhd behaviour.
At per pp kids with asd tend to get more ear infections.

In our experience both. But grommets did improve speech.

He just started nursery 2 days ago he seems ok, he is avoiding eye contact with the teachers but in general I have been told he has been ok. I am genuinely confused now, I asked him if he made any friends and he said yes and when i asked him their names he said "miss emma" she happens to be the head of senco at his nursery.

I have experience of both - one NT child with glue ear although his nursery didn't pick this up and were pushing me to get an ASD assessment; second has a form of ASD (but no sensory issues). My experience is that whilst glue ear can cause social awkwardness and speech delay, there there are subtle differences to do with the quality of the interpersonal interactions.

With the elder (glue ear) I knew something was not right but couldn't put my finger on it for a long time. By the time the glue ear was diagnosed age 3.5 his speech was about 12 months behind and his social skills at nursery v poor (he ignored other children, didn't know how to play properly due to missing out on a lot of speech cues, was still at the parallel play stage and often preferred to play on his own). However at home he would engage in close one-on-one interactions with a lot of natural reciprocity. As a baby he did all the usual gazing intently at me and copying my facial expressions and sounds. As a toddler if I spoke to him he would look at me, respond verbally or non-verbally, and often seek to involve me in his games.

The younger one with ASD was (in retrospect) different right from being a baby, didn't ever really pay attention to people and wouldn't do any of the copying games you see even quite young babies do. Didn't wave or point till 18 months. Was absolutely delightful in many other ways but not socially motivated, has always been way more interested in objects than people, would ignore us most of the time aged 2, and even now although he can engage beautifully it is only when he wants to (he doesn't have any sense of social obligation to do so). However they are both amazing and I wouldn't swap either of them for the world.

My main thought would be that if your son has glue ear that probably isn't helping (it put my eldest's social skills very much behind and it took around a year to catch up ins speech and 3 years to catch up in social skills) so definitely worth investigating that even if there is also underlying ASD.

Thank you zzzz and biscuit rules for your replies.

I actually see him engaging with the teachers more than his peers its early days yet at nursery so everyday when we pick him up we are being told that he is doing well but he is telling us that he has been playing with the cats everyday and this is the repetitive play we see at home he arranges the cars in a particular way and he has been doing so from the age of 2.

I am so overwhelmed by all of these feelings of confusion

Hi Biscuitrules
My son 2.5 yr recently diagnosed with glue ear 3mths ago and had grommets put in 2mths ago. Speech development has been slow and his social skills are behind. What type of therapy did you get for your older son? Do you have any tips for me to help him catch up?