ASC traits disappearing/

[Unluckyinlove2]

Hi All,

I have previously posted on this forum about my son who is now currently 3.5 years old. From around 16 months old I started worrying about his development as he had no words and not much eye contact. Did a bit a digging around and I was led to Autism. Cue panic and appointments with doc’s etc. We finally made it to the Peds when he was around 2 and they decided to take the ‘let’s wait and see in 6 months’ route. They felt he had some traits but he never met the triad of impairments as he had no rituals/obsessions or difficulty with transitions.

Fast forward to 3 years old and the change in my son has been dramatic. He no longer spends his day running up against walls looking out the corner of his eyes or tip toeing. I’d say the only really significant difficulty that remains is the speech delay. We’ve lost a lot of the traits and they have not been replaced by any new ones either. It’s almost like the more language he developed the less autistic he appears if that makes any sense.

I’m not sure what to make of it. I always believeD he may be on the spectrum but I’m not quite sure what to think.

Are there any parents who have experienced this? Did you still receive a diagnoses? We have our assessment in April after waiting for more than a year.. I’m so worried that I have wasted time pursing something he may not have.

All you can do is wait and see what the assessment team say. They are a set of medical professionals and won't diagnose if there's not enough evidence.

With respect, you aren't the best judge of what is and isn't autistic behaviour in your child, many parents are shocked to be given a diagnosis of ASD, then find they have been seeing the autistic behaviour all along but not realising that's what it was because to them it's nothing out of the ordinary, or compensating at home so the autistic behaviour wasn't evident to them. Others are convinced their child is autistic but do not receive a diagnosis.

You've got this far along the pathway, it would be folly to not go through with an assessment now, in a few weeks you will definitely know one way or the other.

Happy for you OP. I would say carry on with the assessment just to be on a safer side.i have heard with right assessment we get help in schools. So go ahead for assessment. Is your son talking in sentences now and playing with other kids in his class?

Keep going with it.

My experience of raising a high functioning child is that he has phases of adapting to what's socially required. 4, 6 & 8 have been relatively calmer phases as the demands of nursery and school are stable and he's adapted to them. 5 was more difficult when he adjusted to school. 7 was hard going when he struggled with SATs (great fun for a child with undiagnosed dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD!) Because he found the SATs term so draining, he was so wound up and sensitive all through the summer unthe was settled into y3 and found that he could cope and there wasn't a step-change.

Thank you for your replies. He can speak in sentences however he stills has delays in language so for example if I ask him how his day at nursery was he will say ‘Sam played in the sensory room’ or if he did something something naughty he will say ‘Sam in trouble today.. kicked Jude’. So he is trying to tell me he got in trouble because he kicked another child in his class. Due to his lack of words he can’t go into too much detail. Regarding playing with children he has always been very social. When he was younger he would always try to engage and play with children and as he grew older it’s almost like he didn’t understand social behaviour. He would stand too close to other kids, try hug them, hold their hands or just try to play the catching game. He’s not as bad now. He knows all the kids names in nursery and runs up to them although I do feel like they are wary of him as again he’s a bit in your face. I do feel like he has a better connection with the 2-3 year olds and I think that maybe because he gets their play a bit more.

It’s crazy because in the back of my mind he’s still that child that I was desperately fighting to get assessed. I keep going back and forth with myself and worry that maybe he has a language disorder and I’ve wasted time focusing on the wrong thing. Regardless I will go ahead and report back if he does get assessed.

For a 3.5Y child the speech delays that you describe do not sound very severe in my opinion. As for autism, at this age the clearest markers for autism would have been present between 12-24M of age (and you will be asked about them in any diagnostic process). At its core autism is a social communication disorder, and while autistic individuals are and can present quite uniquely they all share a common thread in regards to deficits in social communication. For example, there is a very strong correlation between a toddler not pointing to share interests (like a plane in the sky) by 18M of age and a future diagnosis. This can be extended to other traits like social referencing, praise seeking, showing/giving to share, pointing to requests, triadic eye gaze, and other basic but critical forms of social communication that a normally developing child will demonstrate between 12-24M of age (and which autistic toddler tend to struggle with and tend to demonstrate at later ages, like pointing to share interests after 24M old).

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to update this thread my son had his ADOS assessment in June and he was not diagnosed. As I mentioned at 12-24 months he did present with a few traits that were indicating that he could possibly be in the spectrum. Due to covid 19 they couldn’t do the nursery visit part so relied on reports from nursery. They will be looking to come visit him in nursery in September/October and see if he meets the requirements for a Social communication disorder diagnosis.

The main delays he has now are he’s speech and his play skills.

Hi @Unluckyinlove2 is that a relief or a disappointment? It sounds like he's catching up. The ADOS is very thorough (I sat in on DD2's at 11 as she wouldn't leave me, and I was still surprised by some of the observations).

hi @Unluckyinlove2 ,
Can you please share how your son is doing now?