Monday morning

[bullet123]

Is the day that Ds2 goes to see the paediatrician (incidentally Ds1's paediatrician) so we can discuss numerous concerns that we, the area SENCO and the playgroup he attends have about him. Basically he is still not speaking, beyond a handful of very poorly pronounced words, the majority of other sounds being either babbling, humming, screeching or shouting vowel sounds. Besides that he is very self contained, though not as much with me and he will take an adult's hand to get them to help him with things. There's a few other issues as well, but of course at 3 years old it's difficult to separate from typical age behaviour. He has good understanding and is perrfectly capable of getting his meaning across without words (we have been encouraging and pressing for words of course, but he rarely imitates or remembers the soudns).
He had a parents' evening yeaterday in which (when asked directly) they said they thought there was something other than a speech delay going on, but they did not know what and of course can't suggest anyway. So the plan is to get outside help to find out, whether it turns out to be just delayed speech and shyness, or somethign else. These are a couple of entries from his playgroup book:

"Thursday 5th Feb AM" (2.5 hour session):
J came outside with us to make a snowman ( nb, knowing Ds2 he would have possibly watched, but not joined in with the building ). He cried when we went inside for toast and chocolate ,which he enjoyed. For the rest of the morning J was only interested in the trains. Adults moved the trains to different activities to encourage involvement. J kept trying to take track and trains away from the group to play on his own."
"Wednesday 287th Jan AM"
J wants to pick the biscuit up out of the bowl but doesn't seem able to. He keeps getting my hand. I help him to pick up the biscuit by placing his hand on it or picking it up together. When the biscuit is in his hand he seems unable to move it to his mouth. J is holding the biscuit on my knee and moving it from mouth to biscuit".

So, I had to do what's known as the 3DI assessment questionnaire for autism today on behalf of Ds2. It stands for developmental, diagnostic and dimensional (but not necessarily in that order) and is a detailed set of multiple choice questions covering a huge variety of things. Ironically some questions were set towards children with greater language or speech abilities, which made answering them rather tricky. It meant they had to be compromised with "sometimes" (due to weird wording of question) but they wouldn't have made much difference in terms of a higher score.

Anyway, when the results were given they were set out as follows:

Reciprocal Social Interaction Skills:

No concerns - Less than 10 points.
Minimal concerns - 10 points
Maximum Concerns - 30 points.

Ds2 scored 23.2 points.

Of this there was a subsection, known as Social Expressiveness.

No Concerns: 0 points
Minimal Concerns 1 point
Maximum Concerns 4 points

Ds2 scored 3.7 points.

Next section was Use of language and other social communication skills:

No concern - less than 8 points
Minimal concerns - 8 points
Maximum concerns 26 Points.

Ds2 scored 16 points.

Of this there was a subsection entitled Use of gesture and non verbal play.

No concerns: less than 7 points
Minimal concerns 7 points
Maximum concerns 14 points

Ds2 scored 11 points.

Final section was repetitive and stereotyped behaviours.

No concerns less than 3 points
Minimal concerns 3 points
Maximum concerns 12 points.

Ds2 scored 5 points.

Diagnosis therefore autism. But they need to see him sometime in the Summer holidays to formalise and be sure. So not an offical diagnosis but very probable he'll have an ASD diagnosis before the year's out.

we have spoken elsewhere about this, it's jarring to get a DX even if you were accepting it, but this has come as a bit of a shock to you I think, which makes it harder. Hopefully some proper help with language etc will follow now you've got to this stage.

Thank you TotalChaos. It's not a formal diagnosis, he needs to be seen, it's just a probability at this point.
I spoke to one of the playgroup leaders this morning. Ended up talking for an hour . I showed her the results and explained what they meant. There was a funny moment when she gave a big grin upon seeing the 23.2 score and said "ooh, he got 23.2" and I had to explain that actually, that meant there was more concern than if he'd got a lower score. Then she understood and apologised. There was also another funny moment when I picked up a piece of lego to demonstrate my own motor planning difficulties. I meant to throw it first and say "some of the time I can throw perfectly fine" and then to demonstrate what happens when I can't throw. Only my motor planning difficulties kicked in immediately so she got to see the frustrated attempts to relinquish the lego for real .
I asked her if, from what she saw of Ds2 she agreed with the provisional diagnosis and she said yes, how I described him is how they see him at playgroup. She asked about Makaton and I said that in Ds2's case I could not see it working well due to his problems with imitation and possible motor planning difficulties. I mentioned PECS as an alternative but said the SALT would need to see what level he's at with his language and verbal abilities so she can advise on what might work. The playgroup leader also said something I hadn't been aware of, which is that when he wants to play with the trains they have to be two specific carriages. If those carriages aren't there he will not play with the other trains.
I do think that his understanding is good and that once we can finds ways of helping him express this then that should stand him in good stead.

Thinking of you Bullet.

Thank you Shells.

Thinking about you also, Bullet x

Thank you HelonsMelons.

Just seen your post. Just wanted to send some support. My ds8 has ASD and I still remember the feelings around the time he received dx at 3. Be kind to yourself.

Thank you Tibni.

Large cup of tea from me too

Thank you Amber32002. I did need a big kick and the playgroup were fantastic in prompting me. It's not that I thought he had absolutely no problems, just that I thought they could be put down to other things like delayed speech and shyness. And because he can get his needs across (playgroup says he is very adept at getting extra biscuits ) and because his understanding is good I kept thinking he would catch up with his speech and interaction earlier.

Hugs and large cup of tea / slice of cake from me too.
Brio
x

Thank you BriocheDoree.

At least you are getting answers and no dx will make any difference to all the positives you know about, good understanding, imaginative play starting.

Thanks Cyberseraphim.

Hope it doesn't take too long Bullet. I know it was hard waiting for our assessment of DS2. Hope you are ok.