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The State of Affairs of Autism in Australia

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cyberdad
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12 Apr 2012, 2:18 am

Shellfish wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Shellfish wrote:
In am relieved that DS received his dx after DD was born because I am sure this would have thrown a serious spanner in the works in terms of having more children. My daughter appears pretty NT so far, but then so did DS. At one stage I was thinking of having a third but there is no way we would do that now - we need to spent our time and resources on the children we have.


My daughter was pretty NT for the first three years, infact she was well ahead of her milestones...spoke words at 10 months and was obsessively hyperlexic, it was only at three we realised she wasn't forming sentences.


My son and daughter have both met their milestones well within the time periods, the difference is that she learns a lot from people around her - she copies me all the time whereas my son wasn't interested in people, he was interested in things and information

Currently my daughter's biggest interest is in video games. I am going to try and use ipad apps to get her more interested in communicating with others.



Wreck-Gar
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12 Apr 2012, 9:48 am

cyberdad wrote:
autismdad2011 wrote:
my apologies if this offends anyone but I think if you didn't get the message after having 5 or 6 kids and knowing that some of them are on the spectrum, why would anyone one in their right mind continue to bring kids into this world??? I feel sad for the kids in such families. My daughter is nearly 4 and not once has it crossed our minds about extending our family, Our focus is entirely on our kid and until we feel she has improved we would never consider having more. just my opinion though.....


This resonates with our (my wife and I) views. Other people have often asked why we don't have a second child, focusing on my 6 yr old daughter it would unfair on her and irresponsible of us to have a second child.

The current statistics indicate there is a 16% chance of the second child being on the spectrum, however this is inaccurate and really depends on the genetics of both parents. There seems plenty of evidence, I know for instance of a family where all 4 children have severe autism. The parents really should have considered family planning after the first child.


In my case we didn't realize that our first son might have problems till after #2 was born. He was talking and we thought that was fine, but it wasn't till he was 2 and a half or so that we realized he wasn't making sentences and didn't have much joint attention. #2 does not have any delays so far.