Any advice?

[OrangeMoon]

Right where do i start? My ds is 2, (will be 3 in jan) and i am getting to the point where i just cant cope with his behaviour anymore.
He is currently seeing a peadiatrition who is ruling out anything medically wrong with him, but we wont see him again until next year.
I have been asked several times by people if he has autism or aspergers and to be honest it would be so much easier if i could say yes than have them think i am a bad mum and ds is just a very naughty little boy.
Examples of his behaviour are; the other night he came with me to watch dd do her swimming lessons, he decided to run off out the entrance door so i brought him back and sat him on my lap, he instantly started kicking, screaming, biting, pinching and spitting until i let him go, took him outside and sat him in the car for 5 minutes and he calmed down.
Took him to see dd's school play and i could see he was building up to something whilst all the children were coming in, i nearly took him out of there but i couldn'as we were blocked in at the back, he tried to run off under the seats, i grabbed him and he repeated what he did at the swimming pool.
At home if i things don't go his way he has huge meltdowns (i didn't know a child could scream so loud) kicking doors hitting his sister and pushing her over (she has cp), its as if he is trying to break something, the only thing we can do is put him in his room and leave him to calm down on his own.
Other little things are he doesn't like crowds e.g shopping centers etc, poor co-ordination, never seems to sleep, is constantly on the move, doesn't interact well with other children and would prefere to play on his own, i have to call him everal times before he will look at me (he has has hearing and sight tests, both normal).
All this started from when he was about 1 and has steadily got worse, he was walking at 8 months and since he got freedom of movement he has always been phsically and mentally ahead of his peers and is quite bright for his age.
There are lots of other little things about him that are "unusul" but i wont bore you with the more than i have.
Do you think from what i have said about him that he fits into the asd catagory?

It is so difficult to diagnose as high functioning autism is difficult to spot and I'm no expert on ADHD. He does sound a little like my ASD boy was at 2, but crucially my boy had no speech and also no gestures (eg he did not point, or wave, or any of those non-verbal things). I too used to wonder if it was me not being able to cope with motherhood, but then it gradually dawned on me that no-one else's child seemed to be giving them as much trouble. My boy never stopped from morning to night, and it was utterly exhausting. He also did repetitive things, lined things up and bounced up and down flapping his arms and going "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" constantly. With ASD, you have to have one in each of the three triad of impairments: eg some kind of speech delay or abnormality; some kind of repetitive play or lack of imaginative play; and some kind of social problem (eg no eye contact or gesture). I am not sure from what you describe whether he is ASD, but the pointing thing was what clinched it for me, when an autism expert asked me - does he point at things to share them with you, and I realised with a jolt that of course he doesn't as a) pointing has no meaning for him as a gesture and b) he very rarely wants to share attention with me, as is pretty much happy in his own little world.

Anyway, there are also things called CHAT tests you can do on-line for autism I think. Or you can ask for a referral by GP. My only advice would be to start a process now, as if (and only if) it is autism, the sooner you start intervening the better the outcome will be. For instance, we got rid of aggression in my boy by washing his hair every time he hit/bit/kicked when he was two. He now doesn't do it, and my god am I glad we did that before he got too big.

Big hugs to you - I remember just how hard it is, it's hard enough with a well-behaved terrible 2, and boys are FAR FAR harder than girls!

Thankyou for you reply am, my ds does point and does a few other things that would make me think he doesn't have asd.
He is very good at imaginative play but he does use repetition when playing with his toys and does the classic lining up his cars in order and has a major tantrum if they are moved or if i ask him to tidy them away.
As i said before he doesn't interact well with other children and would much rather play on his own and if anyone he doesn't know speaks to him he runs off, hides and has a screaming fit, but i can't work out with his speech wether he is impared or not,
he can talk but often when you ask him questions or talk in general to him he will just grunt and turn away from people and if you persist in trying to get him to answere he just shouts "aaaaarrrrggghhh" and hits us.

I have looked at the CHAT test but not in detail, will have a proper look tonight.

OM I think you can have autistic traits, but not be autistic. He sounds like he has pretty good speech and gesture and therefore not classically autistic at all. I would definitely recommend trying to use some kind of aversive therapy on the aggression - it's short-term pain now, but saves a lot of real trouble later on (eg at school!). Is there anything your DS hates, that you can use every time he hits? I know it sounds cruel, but it is the best advice anyone ever gave me and I feel like I want to pass it on. My DS is having a meltdown on me right now, but he will no longer lash out and that makes it easier to get him into mainstream school system.

I had a really good think and there is nothing he really hates.
He doesn't even understand when i am upset or angry with his behavior, if i try to tell him off he either looks at me as if i am stupid or laughs.
Actually just thinking now he doesn't like certain noises but wouldn't be possible to use that sort of aversive therapy if out with him.
Urg, it's all so confusing and difficult to deal with, i have enought hospital appointments with my dd who has cp to deal with let alone all this on top.

Just have to hope his appointment with the paediatrition comes through soon, he has already had blood tests for diabetes insipidus which may explain some of his behaviour but i haven't heard the results yet, also the paediatrition thinks there is something wrong with his heart but we are still waiting for a refferal to the cardiologist, but i can't chase anything up until next year now.

You have so much to deal with OM! I couldn't use hairwash when out, but eventually once I'd done it a few times at home, just the threat of it worked well enough (even if logically he might have worked out I wouldn't be able to wash his hair in Sainsbury's). I still say it to him today and of course people look at me as if I'm mad, but who cares what they think! I hope things go a bit better, and if you want to chat there are loads of MNers with lots of useful advice on cp and ASD and ADHD, it's a great site.

There are some similarities to my ds2 (4), who has a dx of AS. It's hard to say though as it took a long time for the Paed to make the dx formal because ds2's AS isn't always that obvious.

Ds2 was able to run literally a week after he took his first steps at 1yr-old. He hasn't really stopped since. He had a few words at 2yrs but didn't understand questions. Even now he still finds who/what/where/why/how confusing. Ds2 was able to point after being taught what to do but it's usually with either his middle finger or his little finger.

The poor co-ordination sounds more like my ds1 (ASD). Ds1 also didn't answer to his name until he was older. He was/is very sensitive to noise and just used to block everything out. Even now (at 7yrs)it can take several tries to attract his attention.

Ds2 also hardly ever slept. The Paed prescribed melatonin for him which helped. I found that once ds2 was sleeping for a little longer he was far less hyper during the day.

Ds2's official dx is AS but each time I get a copy of the Paed's report after an appointment there seems to be something else on it. The most recent one says something about having characteristics within ASD but with strong balancing features (whatever that means!).