RE: Kids w/ Classic Autism, PDD-NOS & Speech Delays

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The eyes on the shapes make them quite cute for kids

Welcome Ana
Each ASD child who has a speech delay will vary in their development, 3 word phrases for a 5 yr old is really good progress.
My daughter has just turned 8 and while she prefers to be non-verbal, we know her comprehension and vocabulary is good.
I'm not a big fan of intensive therapy but you might find other parents here will give different views on their experiences with speech therapy or ABA for their children.

I wish you all the best in your journey

That's great, my kid is five and really only talks to ask for some food/snacks he likes.

Congratulations on going viral! I need to check in again, it's been a while, I think there's some new stuff we haven't seen yet. Even though my son hasn't been looking at the videos everyday like he was, parts of them have engrained themselves into every day life. He wants my stuffed elephant to brush his teeth most nights complete with failure buzzers for attempting to brush eyes and noses and ding-dings for brushing teeth. Whenever cooking something with olives he say's "How many olives are they??" and "I ate them all" when he finishes eating something and of course he quotes the fridge.

Ha ha, that's pretty funny. Well we have about 50 videos up now, we have been busy. We got some cheap animation software and have been using that. Plus I have been writing new music. So we aren't putting up videos as fast as before since they are taking longer to make. The shapes one has nearly a million hits now if you can believe that.

Plus our local autism resources center mentioned us in a weekly newsletter, which was pretty cool.

I am new to this site but have noticed that everything seems to be about Aspergers.. I myself was hoping to find more info and communicate about classic autism. I am not familiar with all of the abbreviations...

Hi MOMOFONEWITHAUTISM and welcome to this site,

The founder of this site, Alex Plank,has Aspergers and his original intention was to create a forum for people with Aspergers to communicate and share their experiences with each other in a non-threatening environment.

Alex also made this site for people with classical autism and their parents. The thread you've posted on here was started by parents of children with classic autism to discuss issues relevant to us such as speech therapy and ABA therapy.

Feel free to ask anything or share your experiences if you like.

Hi everyone.

I'm also new to this site. I have a non-verbal two and a half year old daughter, who is also socially delayed. Apologies, but this is going to be quite long as I'm really just spewing all my thoughts and observations about her into this post.

At the age of 2 she saw a paediatrician, who said her play showed autistic traits, but that she didn't necessarily have autism. She doesn't seem to have any sensory issues (except for having her hair brushed and detangled, but pretty sure that's normal ). She only very rarely has tantrums, usually when she's tired, but I would class these as normal two-year-old tantrums, rather than meltdowns, which seem much more severe. They usually happen if she wants something, but can't have it, and once she gets what she wants or is distracted, the tantrum is forgotten. Doesn't seem lke a meltdown to me, but please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure that she responds appropriately to facial expressions. She has seen me crying, and didn't seem all that bothered.

Her father was a late talker. He didn't talk at all until he was about three and a half.

She's fine making eye-contact with me and her father and has improved with other family members, but usually shows little interest in others. She usually plays fine alongside other children, but not with them (which I understood was normal at this age). At the park I've seen her showing interest in another boy -- watching him come down the slide, (after she's come down it herself). She doesn't show much interest in drawing, but tends to take all the pencils out of the box, then put them back repeatedly. Also likes playing with building bricks, sand and water.

She doesn't wave hello or bye-bye, or do gestures to songs, although she has started taking my hands and make ME do the gestures to 'Wind the Bobbin Up.' Her communication skills have improved over the last six months, and she's responding to me pointing and if I remark on something across the room she will often (not always) look around. Responds to her name.

She understands some of what I say, and if she wants to give me something (usually the remote control) she will make sure to put it diectly in my hand, rather than just throwing it at me, which is what she used to do six months ago.

She's also started using my hand as a tool, which I had thought of as an improvement in her communication. And it IS, but I've recently learned this can also be a sign of autism. She will also take my hand and drag me somewhere if she wants something.

She shows very little imaginative play. Sometimes after a yoghurt, she will take the empty spoon and pretend to feed us both from the yoghurt pot. Once I also got her to feed a rubber duck, which I really need to try doing again. Also pretending to drink my coffee cup and then making a bleugh face (really just sticking her tongue out).

She sticks out her tongue a lot, walks on tiptoe, occasionally makes grimacing faces, with her eyes squeezed shut (which I used to think was her copying me as I sometimes close my eyes when I smile -- now not so sure). Other than that, she doesn't show much stimming behavious. She went through a period of spinning around, but I'm pretty sure that was normal play. She would do it when I suggested it, and look at me. She flaps her hands on occasion, but only briefly, usually when excited.

She used to be scared of the hoover, but now is not bothered by it, so I think that was just because she wasn't used to the sound (not sure what that says about my housekeeping skills )

She's also started putting on my shoes and clomping around the house with them, which is hilarious, because they're massive hiking boots.

And that is a little (ha ha) about my daughter -- I'm already starting to feel like I've left loads out but for the sake of your sanity and mine, I'll shut up. If you've made it through, well done.

We're looking into portage services for her, and for the last six months she's been going to a playgroup specifically for children with speech problems, which has been a lot of help. Initially the speech therapist who attends those sessions did not think autism was at the heart of her problems, because her receptive speech seemed okay and she was picking up new words. She still is picking up new words, but her social interaction with others seems to have worsened, if anything, although her communication skills with me have improved.

She has her initial assessment with a speech therapist on Monday, so I'm going to see what will come of that.

Sorry for the ridiculously long post.

Welcome to the group. Overall girls on the spectrum are much more likely to have milder symptoms than boys (this leads to a lot of girls never being diagnosed or receiving help). My son was still non-verbal at 2 1/2, he used to just spew random letters and numbers and has more extreme behaviors than what you listed. He couldn't answer the question "what is your name?" until he was around 4 1/2, I think ... he's 5 1/2 now and is definitely verbal now although he still has communication difficulties but his reading capabilities are well above what is typical for his age.

Glad to hear you're getting some help, for me it was just a huge relief to finally have someone else acknowledge that the issues I was concerned with were real problems and not figments of my imagination.

Hi Alimay,

It sounds like your daughter has not been formerly diagnosed with ASD? In any case speech therapy is going to help regardless if she just has a form of global speech delay. My hope is that's all she has.

My brother was born with a speech delay and was wrongly diagnosed as ret*d. He turned out just fine. My daughter has been formally diagnosed with ASD She did have similar traits to your daughter except she could say words from 10 months and write/spell from 18 months. She did not start communicating in sentences till 5-6.

Hi Cyberd and Washi.

Yeah, she's had no diagnosis as yet. In fact, over the last couple of days or so, I feel like I've noticed a slight improvement. My mum is down to stay for a couple of days, and Abi has really been interacting with her very well. I've also noticed some improvement in her receptive language -- just small baby steps but everything makes a difference, right?

Anyway, another busy day planned. We're off to the swimming pool, then either going shopping or maybe for a walk in the woods.

You've probably been told that early intervention is considered key to your daughter's development. The earlier you work on her speech the better the prognosis.

Sounds like you've had a fun day my daughter, wife and I went out in the local theme park here in Melbourne (Luna Park) and went for a lovely walk in the sunshine!

We got him to pee in the bathroom at the mall today.

Also if anyone is interested I finally started a fan page on Facebook for my YouTube channel.

https://www.facebook.com/thekidspictureshow

That's great! My son insists on taking a tour of the public restrooms wherever we go. Doesn't matter if he has to go or not. :p

I've come to the realization that my son has been flushing whole rolls of toilet paper, cardboard tube and all. How he's not clogged the toilet doing this I don't know, I also don't know how I haven't heard all the flushing ... it seems like he's been achieving this with minimal flushing. Twice now he's called me up to the bathroom complaining that we were out of toilet paper when I know there was at least half a roll there, the first time the cardboard tube was completely gone - the second time some soggy pieces of it were in the trash. I got angry and yelled both times followed by an explanation as to why we shouldn't flush whole rolls of toilet paper. I doubt either tactic had much impact. He's mostly independent about going to the bathroom so I haven't caught him in the act. There's no way his father is going to remember to keep the door closed which would mean he would have to ask to use the bathroom so I would know when to monitor him. I think I'm going to have to leave just a little bit in the bathroom and keep the rest locked up in the closet.