Any comment welcome - recognise this at all?

[lagaanisace]

I have a wonderfully engaging son whom people tend to love and we're priveledged he's ours , but his development has been a puzzle. He didn't walk until 26 months, speech began slowly at about 30 months, and while he loves interaction he has constant, ever-changing phases and obsessions. He's 4 this month and he has not the slightest awareness of danger and any reaction from us increases the likelihood of his doing something scary (running onto the road...,etc). He's very impulsive and readily distracted. He attends a wonderful nursery where he gets one on one attention. The Ed Psych puts him at around 2. I have a 10 month old daughter and a son nearly 6 (on the G&T register, interestingly) who are both very accepting of his behaviour - because although he's lovely, he can be very hard work and his behaviour quite impenetrable .

Hiya, it does ring some bells for me (my son has autism and ADHD) but equally, lots of children without any issues do some of those things. I know it's very worrying but don't start obsessively googling if you can help it, because it can be scary and might not even be anything to do with either of the things I've mentioned at all.

The first thing to do is to go to your GP and ask for a referral to a paediatrician, at the Child Development Centre (or whatever yours is called). They will assess and either put your mind at rest or refer him on to find out what's going on. Did the Ed Psych have any ideas?

Ta for reply. I'm new. We've had no diagnosis. The Ed Psych talks about autistic characteristics, but his development has been so unique (well, yes, I know, it always is). He has always been highly social interactive, but with a lack of awareness of how his actions impact others, even at a very basic level. I'm not stressed out about a label as such, but any input is gratefully accepted, because it's easy to think it's just you and just your child if you don't have a label.

agree with givemesleep. would also suggest you push for speech therapy referral and a hearing test (hearing test as a basic screen for an obvious physical cause for a language problem) . and sympathies -I found the run up to starting school an enormously stressful time while stuck on waiting lists without diagnoses etc. My DS's problems were a little different - although he started speaking at 15months, his speech stopped developing between 2 and 3, and SALT told me he had severe language delay at 3. He was referred for ASD assessment, but found "probably" not to have it. We were very lucky in that he goes to a very small school, and DS's language has improved a great deal (still not 100% there yet) so he manages OK (for the moment.....)without any individual support. I didn't go for a statement for him as none of the professionals thought he needed one (including private SALT not employed by local authority). You will get lots of advice on here if you do want to apply for a statement for him, and Ipsea and SOS!SEN are charities that offer advice

It sounds very familiar to me, but actually my son had a significant (undiagnosed) hearing loss, sub mucus cleft palate, hypotonia and lots of very poor health.

I would second what TC said about a hearing test, very small children cope very well with not hearing and can fool us into thinking they can hear us iyswim. Once DS2 had his hearing aids his sense of danger was much better (although still not as good as I would like!).

DS2 got 1:1 care at pre-school funded by the LEA and now is in reception at a mainstream school with a full statement and his own teaching assistant.

Thanks. He goes to a wonderful nursery at present where they have language therapy kind of on site, and the head teacher kind of acts as his advocate. I know we're very fortunate in this. The head teacher and the special needs lady (I'm hopeless with all the titles) from his prospective school say he needs a statement, he needs one-on-one. His behaviour is difficult to manage in a classroom setting. They say it's best for me to request one. I am anxious about him starting school because he's so happy in his nursery and is making excellent progress there. I worry about lunch times and play times. I want to go with him and be his TA!

Can you tell us more about the no sense of danger thing?

for instance

• can you let him climb a tower on a climbing frame or would he jump off?
• at the swimming pool would he jump in without you there to catch him? (assuming he can't swim yet?)
• any common childhood fears eg dogs?

Oh that is how I felt this time last year but actually school for us has been great. It's good that the school feel he needs a statement in terms of having their support.

On ds2's statement he has help over the whole school day including play and lunch times. His 1:1 knows at play times they are there more to keep a watchful eye rather than be stuck to him.

When would he start school?

Your nursery sounds great btw.

lingle, Hi. Have been reading your postings with interest. Well, given the chance he would run head long into traffic, not just impulsively, but almost compulsively. Any reaction on our part exacerbates it so we have to pretend we're not interested and distract him desperately. I don't think he'd jump off a climbing frame but I can imagine him jumping into water.

simply, I think he's had his routine checks, but do you think it's worth raising again?

It's an early intake school, so he's supposed to start in September. I think I've decided to keep him in nursery for an extra term, though, so that we can climatise him to school gradually over the Autumn term.

That sounds like a good idea. If you would like him to have a statement it would probably be a good idea to apply for one now. They can take ages.

Does he see a paediatrician? If not you might want to try and get a referral maybe.

If you charted his development it would clearly be very very jagged, like that of lots of the kids on this board.

Everything but the no sense of danger I could live with. But until that resolves, I would stay well and truly in the system and keep pestering them.

Does he has a sense of what it is to be a "big boy" yet? Does he aspire to that? Is there a boy he admires who could model road-crossing with you? Would your DS copy him?

It was the impulsiveness and lack of awareness of danger that was and still is most taxing parenting our son. I think ds reacted to our attempts to protect him (he too tried even harder to avoid rescue/restriction if we made it obvious) once he noticed. Ie I think he liked reactions (and cannot tell the difference between a delighted responce and a cross or scared wittless one!)! Ds ( now 9) has a Dx of autism ADHD and S/MLD. This does not mean your son has the same ofcourse only that I empathise with the difficulties. One thing I wonder is - does your son learn from experience? Ie if jumping off a table causes injury the first few times will he modify his behaviour to avoid injury the next time and then take care jumping off other things or in different places? Or is it more that he acts before he thinks? If he is not learning selfpreservation I would be more concered.

It rings a few bells..Not with my ds but with a friends ds
( My friend suspects Asd and adhd... and is seeking diagnosis at the moment.)
He ofton acts in a very compulsive way.He seems to want to do/want to say the very thing that isn't acceptable...especially if it is alluded to in anyway. The traffic thing rings bells too.My friends ds is a runner and also has no idea of the impact his actions cause at all.
I would keep pestering too.

Thanks so much, everyone! He doesn't really aspire to bigboyhood yet. He does like to copy his big brother and that can be a useful tool sometimes, but not to the extent that it could be used to modify his behaviour long term.

magso - that's just how it is! He loves a reaction however badly the cause impacts others, even himself. We have to feign disinterest. He certainly acts before he thinks. I think that if he does learn selfpreservation, he does so particularly slowly.

It's strange because he really loves and forms attachments to people, but if he's in a hitting, biting (or in the case of his baby sister, fierce eye-poking) phase he seems to find any reaction, including pain, a source of amusement.

But, yes, it's the danger thing that I find particularly upsetting.

The feigning disinterest is familiar to me! Eventually we turned it around to a simple but strong ( with sign and head shake) 'no' followed by 'sending to coventry' ( no eye contact, no expression, putting in safe place ( if available) and ignorning studiously!) Then giving attention to anything ( anything!!)desirable. This is very tricky as of course you cannot actually ignore a child living dangerously!
Ds is also very sociable and seeks attention from whoever. Ds was into eye poking too - I just do not think he understood it hurt - he only saw a reaction and of course it didnt hurt him to bite/poke or hit! I do not think he could understand from another persons perspective at all.

I'm a teacher and once attended a fascinating talk by a lady who had an ds with ASD. She said that they couldn't work out why he kept trying to touch the fire. Obviously, every time he did, they would say "Ouch, hot, don't touch". After a while, with him still touching the fire, they realised that it was the sound of their words/reaction/facial expressions he liked, not actually touching the fire.

I was really struck by this, and whenever I'm working with a child with ASD, I always try and look at how I'm reacting to any situation, to see whether I'm part of the obsession, if you see what I mean.

Sorry - that's no help at all, but your information about the way you react to his behaviour was interesting.

Hmm, Littlefish has given me an idea.

DS2 had his running into the road phase at about 2.6 for about six months. What made it worse was that big brother was on a scooter and therefore appeared to be running into the road in DS2's eyes.

One thing that helped was grabbing his hand and then using the most powerful "reinforcer" I could - which in his case is saying "good boy! enthusiastically" every second while we crossed. So although he'd had no intention of holding my hand he got so much attention for holding it (or having his hand forcibly held) that it started seeming rewarding for him.

For another child you could drag them across holding their hand then produce a treat from your pocket at the other side (immediately upon stepping on the pavement). And of course they only get the treat if you've held their hand all the way across. It wouldn't matter if they'd screamed (not at first anyway).

How obvious is it that I've been reading up on my behaviourism?

But truthfully what really cracked it was reaching the "big boys do X" stage.

On the contrary, Littlefish, it does help, and magso, too.

With the eye poking I'm on constant high alert and simply try to deflect it with a firm 'no!'. His nursery is trying an approach like yours and we try to follow suit, but it's not easy while trying to also protect the rights of nearly six and 10 month old!

Also, we tell him how wonderfully nice he's being at anytime he's not actively hurting his sister.

So anyway, thanks. All this really does help.

ooh, slight lightbulb moment here. ds1 usually announces he is a girl or I am a boy or similar for my reaction (exaggerated nooooo and roll of the eyes which he finds hilarious.) I am encouraging it aren't I? (resolves to be more serious..)

The good boy, good boy thing works for us too.

Welcome OP, by the way. Some of what you describe reminds me of ds1 who has mild autistic traits and lang delay/disorder. It sounds like you've got him in a good nursery so hopefully they will liaise with professionals to get him the help he needs to progress.

Hey, we do the boy girl thing, too! Good point...

Yes, the nursery is wonderful. It's just a state mainstream pre-school, but my goodness! They constantly look out for his next 'step' and how to achieve it. The head teacher is already liaising with and visiting his prospective primary school and she promises to send his TA for the first few sessions when he starts properly in January! We moved after he started there so I now spend 2.5 hours of every day retrieving him from nursery by train and people think I'm mad, but anyone who can relate to the way my son is will know exactly why I do it...

Ours is great too, we're lucky that it's also very near but they amaze me with the care they take over ds1 and the amount they observe. He comes home with a book filled with comments each day and I feel really informed. Would love him to have an extra year there rather than starting school at 4.0 but have no chance sadly given how inflexible our LEA is on starting age ..

Early admissions....

Can any of you pinpoint the moment you said to yourself, "This isn't going away. My child has special needs."?

Personally, for ages I just assumed that everything would normalise and the moment I realised it wouldn't seemed kind of disloyal to this amazing person in our lives . Even as I write this I feel vaguely disloyal .

OP: sounds like my DS, he was diagnosed with mild hypotonic cerebral palsy with autistic behaviours (but he doesn't have all the aspects). He first crawled at 11 mo, walked at 2 years 10mo.

lagaanisace

only thing with delaying it by a year can mean they go staright into year 1.I looked into it for my summer born ds