I feel a bit of a fraud

[tyres]

My son was diagnosed with ASD just after he turned 3. He had a pretty classic list of 'symptoms' then, no speech, no eye contact, certain sensory issues. The Paed diagnosing said he was faltering on the side of a severe language disorder, but went with ASD because of lack of social communication/interaction. Difficult for us but it was the 'signpost' for access to Portage, speech therapy, special playgroup, assessment for statement (not given), DLA etc etc.

Fast forward to age 5.5, my son has blossomed. He started mainstream school with no 1-1 support and his speech has exploded, he is great with his peers, his sensory problems have reduced (eg he went to the school disco last night - loud music, flashing lights, children shouting and screaming - and had a good old bop with his younger sister. Not possible a year or even 6 months ago), although still minor issues. Even his jumping and humming have subsided, and his getting off to sleep has improved. We still have a bit of an issue with pooing but we are getting there. He is also able to increasingly create imaginary situations, eg pretending his bed is a train and driving it along, stopping at stations to let passengers off etc.

In short, it's almost as if he's not ASD anymore. I am delighted of course, with his improvement, but feel a fake when people ask about him, and there is the usual, 'oh that happens with all kids' when you tell them of specific incidents, which makes me feel even more like I am somehow imagining it all...

I read of all the difficulties that people have on here and sympathise and understand greatly, but to be honest, there isn't much that relates to my son now. I am so proud of him, but am now wondering if indeed, he is ASD ? Is it possible for children to develop 'normally' after diagnosis ? Am I so used to his ASD that I can't see the wood for the trees and just take his difficulties for granted ?

I'd be interested to read if anyone has any similar experiences.
Thanks for reading (am on 2nd glass of wine btw so am feeling a bit emotional atm)

But it's a Bristol neuro who we had the discussion with (would you come under Bristol? Quite probably for neuro)

I wouldn't think so MrsT, we'd come under Cardiff if not the RG.

It is soemthing we will raise again with PAed, but she's put back our appt from March (spo much to talk about) to August. I will be taking a list though. There's soemthing else going on with DS3 as well (there seems to be some form of gender issue going on- hard to describe but he wants to be a girl, looks like one and is only interested in all things girly). We were told to discuss that as well.

Can MRI prove a child has ASD? I thought there was no specific test for it?

You need a neuro. It may well be Bristol - we don't come under Bristol except for neurology and if an MRI was performed it would be there (we have a big teaching hospital in our city).

No it doesn't nappy - not yet - but it can show up abnormalities. Our neuro thought an MRI would be able to potentially show a lot more in a few years as technology improves which was why we decided to put it on hold for now and perhaps revisit in the future.

NA as MrsT says not yet, but DS3 is asd but atypical with a history of ehad injury, and I would love to know for sure whether that ehad injury was a specific cause of rgression, basically the injury was caused by a young DS1; obv, we wouldn't mention it to him and never have but it would be lovely to know not IYSWIM

So can MRI tell if they were born with ASD or if not when it happened?

Not yet NA, more a sctreening tool for other causes iyswim.

I think the general feeling is that the majority of ASD kids are born with something that is triggered- that could be at birth or through diet, infection, accident, whatever.

ASD is really just a name for a collecfion of symptoms rather than an isolated single cause anyway, so my guess it that it will slowly be a case of identifying those one bynone and I expect some will show on mri and some not

But my aetilogies module is next term LOL

DS is due to have an MRI soon that's all and I wasn't sure what we could find out from it.

Tyres, don't ever let the ASD/not ASD debate interfere with enjoying the progress!

Seems to me that not only are there hundreds of "autisms" but each of those "autisms" is itself at least three things. It's the actual underlying biological differences. Then it's the person's psychological reactions to those differences (cue lifelong anxiety, for example). Then it's how society perceives the severity of the resulting "symptoms" which, bizarrely, seems to be how we do the diagnosis.

I think everyone is going to agree with sickofsocalledexperts - yes, the family (including siblings) and nursery (and perhaps even therapists in some parallel universe?)can be credited with unlocking potential, and I guess also with preventing or reducing psychological problems. (DS2 would have been more anxious and withdrawn had it not been for understanding parents and big brother).

But that's it, that's all it can do.

I suppose the very special thing about early help though is that the brain is still changing.

I wonder if maybe in the future people could be genuinely "cured" of some of the underlying conditions that we bundle together and describe as "autism". For instance, I'm moderately face-blind. If my face-blindness had been identified on a brain scan when I was 18 months old, could work have been done to help me use that underperforming part of my brain, so that I wouldn't have to desperately cobble together identities today from internally listing people's attributes?