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

Post Reply New Topic

My daughter is 13 and is attending a mainstream school but she is on an ILP.

She participates in activities at school and is fairly independent. She has a lot of catching up in the area of speech/social skills and so hasn't made any long term friends yet. But certainly a big improvement from being non-verbal up to the age of 6.

She loves to read, do physical activity, taken up horse riding and rock climbing in the last 12 months. Also very musical. When she is "chilling out" she likes watching youtube (not unlike many adults) while hiding under the dooner cover.

Hi ... So glad your daughter is making such a progress and wish her the best! The horse riding is great there are so many mental benefits to horseback riding.All children develop at their own pace and in the own way.When I do my daughter homework it's easy and when it's comes to his homeworks I need to put alot of work in to get him understand clearly.They gets loads of homework.I make learning fun through game based learning.I'am very proud because his grades for this term was pretty good. And last post I said he can almost write his name and he can without showing or helping We are busy with his surname.I'am very positive person and know he gonna do this.We have a difficult time at counting and colours.He is easy to make friends but will be shy. But when you invite friends to his house no problems he's easy and interact with them.I think the fact that so many friends of this sister visiting is good.Always around children He is always around girls so his best friend at school is a girl to He likes to do little pranks and likes to tease his father telling him mommy is mine I get lots of hugs and kisses.Sometimes he will call his father and show him all the hugs he giving me He can get a little jealous when I give his sister the last goodnite kiss he will get up and give the last kiss.Sometimes it takes 10min to put them in bed because they are battling who's giving the last of whatever it is. But it's a good laugh.He sleeps good.He never wanted to take a day nap.I try it but it never work.His sister have take day nap till 4years old but he never.He is a little helper always insists carry the bags it's soo cute even when it's very heavy I got advice trying tongue twister.I gonna give it a try Now I only give omgega and vitamins pills.The midicine that's really works for him was Xcel.I try my best to raise him to be confident,strong and just be yourself.

Thanks for all the positive comments!! !

Yes having a sibling who is active in his life is going to be very helpful.

It's also a relief that when you and your husband are not there somebody else will keep an eye on your son.

At the moment we are by ourselves. Our immediate family don't live in the same state of Australia but because of work opportunities we have to stay put.

Hi,did your daughter get any diagnosis?What were your daughter first symptoms?At what age did she get a diagnosis?

My daughter was first formally diagnosed with Kanner's autism at 5. Prior to that I suspected she was showing signs of language delay although ironically she started speaking words at 10 months old (elephant and hippopotamus) and she was hyperlexic being numerate and literate and able spell aforementioned animal words at 18 months. Our then speech therapist and OT literally told us we were bad parents for not getting her diagnosed earlier.

Son is approaching the age of 3 1/2 now and he's getting faster. He has the funniest running posture I have ever seen. He starts off with staring down on his feet to make sure they're in line with each other. Then raises one arm and one leg, like a soldier and patrols off He can run long distances as well. I think he's starting to map up his world because he's now aware of how to get himself to places within a radius of 2km.

The running is pretty tiring as he's unaware of dangers. He was nearly killed 3 days ago as he just took off when eating ice cream. It happened at a small ice cream stand located by a pretty quiet street. As he starts running out I see there's a car approaching at biking speed so I'm pretty sure the driver will take notice and stop. As the car comes closer I notice the driver is not paying attention to the road, he is looking towards the ice cream stand. I scream as loud as I can and for some reason my son pays attention and stops, turns around and look at me wondering what I want. The driver of the car reacts on my scream and hits the break but it had been too late had my son kept going instead of stopping. Really close call that. Now we've invested in a chain that we attach to the wrist for situations like that. I'm also starting to think about GPS for the future when he will be able to climb the fence which we installed in may

ABA is not going as smooth anymore. He's not especially interested in solving puzzles or listening to instructions. I'm just hoping he's not losing those skills. He's improving a bit in social awareness. Not as scared of other children anymore and he's also able to look at things when I call for his attention. Usually an airplane or train that show up and I try to train joint attention. Speech is going extremely slow. He is only able to spell out 2-3 letters of a word that he want to say, and all words are connected to something he really wants. For example, if he wants an ice cream (swedish word glass) he will only say "gllll" instead of glass. Honestly I can't even imagine how it will be possible for him to speak. It feels so far away

The biggest sorrow right now is the fact that his baby brother is not getting any recognition from him. Baby brother is now giving up on trying to socially engage with him, which is really sad. It's also possible that he's regressing into autism as he's showing loads of signs. He's extremely hard to catch and have a lot of problem keeping eye contact. He's non verbal at 1 1/2 with no signs of any words. There is a bit of difference between the two in regards of connection though. However, the baby brother is not able to do any of the things the autistic brother was doing at the same age, such as pointing out things in books, looking at books with real intense. So much alike and at the same time so different. I never understod that kind of statement until I had my two boys.

I think you should read some of the other stories on ABA on this forum to get an idea that it's fairly hit and miss.

My wife and I trained in ABA and found first hand it has some benefits but plenty of limitations.

People who use ABA with their children over many years may not pick up that developmental changes in the child's cognitive maturity and ability to reason become more advanced and the child may develop their own insight. Repetitive training can sometimes also have negative repercussions.

But I guess at the moment it's all we have.

Thanks for input on that matter. I'm always trying to find more information on ABA but then I tend to only want to read the positive things. Is there any special thread where ABA is discussed in general where people actually come to some conclusion? We've done parts of ABA but then I really don't know if it's really ABA or stuff you'd be doing anyway. I mean, what kind of parent wouldn't teach their child to stop when you tell them to?

In the manual there's a lot of things that require speech and we're not there yet. I am really longing to hear him say something so if we get there I would love to do some of these exercises where you ask your child this and that. As for now we're trying to expand play and social skills. I've taken some ideas from Eikonabridge when in play. Problem is he's not obsessed with one single subject - yet?

Either way, news for this thread is he's now up on the toilet without being scared!! He didn't poo in it, was just sitting up on the ring and playing with some cars on a table infront of him. As mentioned earlier he was potty trained by 7months but lost the will of using the potty at about 2 years. The feeling is he just matured a little bit and made the choice himself - as with a lot of other things such as eating with his hands. We never used any ABA to teach him these stuff.

Could you explain a bit more about developmental changes in cognitive maturity and ability to reason?

Hi Jon81.

So ABA is a fancy word for operant conditioning. Essentially learning new skills through consequences.

So going to toilet/potty independently is rewarded with something your child likes. In theory this should work by concurrently using negative reinforcement when he doesn't follow instructions. Usually a "no" or in some cases removing reward or time out etc...over time he will "get it"

As you say parents have been doing this for centuries but in ABA it's evolved into a systematic form skills/learning.

I don't think there's a thread on ABA (this is probably it) as WP is an Aspergers orientated online platform (if you haven't already noticed). I started this thread for this purpose as I figure if even one parent gets benefit then it's worth it.

One small caveat is that every child is different....but...your little one will inevitably surprise you as he gets older. The ability to reason and need for independence varies but we notice that for our daughter she started wanting to do things herself on her own initiative. Toileting, bathroom, washing etc....

The question in our heads was whether repetitious teaching via ABA helped or whether her ability to reason and cognitive maturity "kicked in"....I don't know the answer. The safest course of action is repetitious learning as the child at least develops schemas for the activity, the danger is of course is their schema for the scenario (i.e. toilet training) involves you being there but I am sure this will change with age.

Yes, ABA is the big question. Most times I don't see the connection in my sons development if you look at the stuff we're doing in sessions. He did learn how to match, point, hand over and a bit of puzzle from sessions, but there are plenty of other things that he learned while just playing together with me or out of curiosity. I have even figured out the way he looks when he gets inspired. Earlier this week he briefly stared at some kids rolling down from a hill, and there was that look on his face that I've noticed he does when picking something up from his environment. I figured he'd want to try it in time, he never jumps into something without letting it sink in. And guess what, the other day they told me he'd been rolling down from a hill and had a lot of fun at daycare. So there is certainly inspiration coming from outside his bubble.


I'm currently reading Communicating Partners by James D MacDonald and I find it very interesting how his approach teaches social skills. The reason I find it interesting is I experience the same thing growing up with a younger brother being a suspect of having the syndrom.

So, my youngest brother was tested for Asperger due to being impossible in school. He never reached the stage of getting a diagnosis because my mom and dad thought it was just blaha, and so they just terminated the whole thing. My father was telling the psychologist the questions were BS because even he could identify with the answers leading up to a diagnosis, and that would mean he'd be autistic as well, upon which the psychologist had replied: Yes!

Maybe I'm digging too deep into this now but since I've already typed all that text I just go ahead explaining how these social training techniques came in a natural way.

Turn taking - eating snacks - we always had to take one each. We had to wait for each other to finish before taking a new.

Drawing - He loved drawing. Way above age appropriate skills. He was absolutely mad about dinosaurs and would draw them constantly. His starting point of a T-rex would be the leg... I would often sit and draw together with him as to "join in".

Three older brothers who constantly played with him on his level.

All that leading to him being quite ok socially, even though a bit withdrawn.


From your posts it seems like your daughters biggest issue is fitting in socially. Do you believe you've missed out on teaching her social skills? Did you incorporate any techniques in the style of "More than Words"(Hanen) or "Communicating partners" or any other 'social skills' technique? I also find the work of Jason Lu (eikonabridge) very, very interesting.

If you look at all the behavior therapies and just ignore the medical part I notice there are some overlapping ideas crystalizing on how to work towards helping our kids. They all share the part of needing to find what motivates your child. Joining in without taking over and expand play. Picture oriented learning.
Then there are some parts where you need to make a decision. Use pictures or work on the verbal skills - or both - as an example.
Would be interesting to hear your view on this.

*ignore this post*

So all ABA does is systematically use a combination of positive and negative reinforcement, so if your son eats with you then you just apply these techniques in the normal course of his eating 3 times a day


Which doesn't surprise me, every young nephew/cousins son I know went through a dinosaur phase. Drawing is both recreational and for my daughter it was a great "time out" or relaxation exercise to allow her to unwind if she was anxious about something. Building resilience and independence requires keeping their self-esteem high, this is called strength based learning where you use their strengths (in your son's case drawing) to build confidence by encouragement.


This is mostly our fault rather than hers. She is an only child and we have no friends in Melbourne where we live. In primary school she went to a mainstream school and kids tolerated her but were nice/played with her. But zero friends. At least in highschool she has developed friendships in school but again nothing close (at least now she gets invited on play dates/birthday parties). One of our ex-speech therapists scolded us for not doing enough to develop her social skills. We thought that was a bit harsh (especially since we were paying her to improve her social/speech skills). If she had siblings/kids to play with outside of school (especially in her early years) I am sure she would be fairly social as she likes other people.



I think simply observing what your child likes and encouraging them when they have a go can only help. For my daughter she loves travel. We have used the promise of travelling to far away exotic places as an incentive for her to do a wide range of activities she may not have had the initiative to do because travelling requires some level of cooperation and independence (for example she's an expert with dealing socially with customs/baggage). Fortunately when she is internally motivated she is capable of moving mountains. Just need to broaden her interests.

Jason Lu may be too humble to promote this but his methodology in bringing up children with autism is really quite groundbreaking
http://www.eikonabridge.com/

My only regret is I discovered this so late!

Strongly encourage parents to read Jason's methods and spend less time reading about Lovaas, Baron-Cohen and Attwood

It is an interesting methodology indeed and I always find myself thinking about it whenever we're getting advice on how to develop our son (which is soon to be sons because boy #2 is without a doubt coming along on this ride).

A lot of these approaches have some overlaps and some contradictories when you compare them to each other. I suppose everyone here is aware of who Jacob Barnett is and how his mom Kristine helped him emerged (or if it would have happened anyway). It would be totally fantastic if that was the case with my kids as well, no problem with that, and I'm sure many others would feel the same. So the only thing I see differ here between Jason's approach and Kristine is he's using pictures to communicate. The rest is focused on following the lead of the child.

Then there are people like James D MacDonald who focus a lot on social interaction. I'd say his method was the one my little brother got from me and his older siblings during his time of growing up. We had a lot of interaction by sharing interest in drawing (he would draw much more advanced than his age group). Me being 11 years older also gave access to his interest for riding motor bikes.

ABA is the least appealing from a parents perspective because it just takes so much effort doing something repetitive without knowing if you actually gain any progress. That video with Lövåås training the kids and getting those results are hard to argue with. I know he's not very popular here around because of his methods and the money in this "business" puts me off quite a bit. Of those 47% 'recovered' one guy even rocketed into the gifted level of iq. So there's something that must have been done the right way. He states that not all children with autism can learn through ABA, so what if all these autism cases are different conditions or just have different brains with exclusive way of learning...

I also have a lot of first hand stories on Lövåås since our therapist/Advisor was a very close friend of his since the early 80's and spent a lot of time working under him during this period. The man was eccentric and pragmatic. When telling his students how NOT to do ABA he would show videos of his own therapy sessions. So he was not proud of that work.