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

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It's funny but people in Australia under 40 can't remember Rainman or knows who Dustin Hoffman is!
The average person hears of autism here they think it's like an intellectual handicap!! lot of educating to do. Some parent's at my daughters school thought they were being helpful by telling me about a school for the disabled, I generally avoid parents at school now.

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. Here's another issue we have. It's pretty common that autistic kids do not respond to their names. I think it's because they do not understand that the sound of their name actually is associated with them. I was just working on "Who is it?" with my son and when I pointed to Mommy and asked, "Who is it?" he said his own name. We kind of suspected he thought this as he often calls out his own name when he wants Mommy to come. Does anyone else have this issue? Why would this be? Some sort of attachment issue? He definitely has problems with separation anxiety.

Not so sure about that. Hyperlexics are generally visual thinkers. However it may be a preference for the smooth side of the leggo than the sides with teeth, Possibly a tactile issue?

I'm just wondering what your son is thinking. Is he definitely trying to build with the lego bricks? Or is it possible that he is putting the 'straight' edges of the bricks together to 'match' them? I only ask cos my son is very visual, and very into matching, but not building.

It took a long time for my son to call me anything at all...we had no idea that there was anything going on with him at all at that point of course, I just thought it was odd. But he recently (last couple of months) seemed to have a bit of a breakthrough in realising that people have different names. He still calls all silver haired/bearded men grandad, and all bald men daddy, but at least he is beginning to call other children by their names when he knows them.

I was watching my son at the park a little while ago. He went up to quite a few different children and said 'hello, I'm [name]'. Not a single one responded to him, and yet he is apparently the one with the social skills problem!

Well my impression is that he's trying to match them up but till he can talk more I can't really ask him.

It's only his own name and Mommy that are issues. He's been calling me Daddy for quite some time.

My son with classic autism calls his father "Burton" (his father's first name) instead of Daddy. He used to call my mother "Janice" instead of Grammy.

Both of my kids get their pronouns confused--everyone is "he."

I don't think that either of them is clear on family relationships--what an aunt is, etc.

My older son also used to say "Ben wants ____," instead of "I want ______."

Sometimes the kiddos need to be taught stuff that other kids just pick up and get right without much effort.

I taught my son to build with Legos by sitting behind him and using hand over hand to get him to stack them properly. I had to be very animated to keep his interest.

I'm similar and was watching a Temple Grandin video someone posted on Facebook yesterday and almost cried when she started talking about how good she was at geometry and how bad she was at algebra and how important it was to have someone to allow her to focus on and do the things she was good at first. Because I excelled at geometry in elementary school and had to go to summer school repeatedly for algebra and was never permitted to take another geometry class (I get my geometry fix now by doing advanced origami). It wasn't until I was an adult that the part of my brain that can enjoy algebra turned on and I took algebra 102 in college, I got perfect scores on every test and broke the bell curve the teacher was using for grading, I wish I could have continued taking more classes but life got in the way. I was actually like that in every subject, A's in Biology, F's in Chemistry, A's in Creative Writing, F's in Grammar, etc. I wish I could do it all over again knowing what I know now.

We tried this, he seemed to be getting it but by the next day he forgot again. Maybe he's just not interested...we did try building big numbers for him out of the Legos, though.

Yeah, mine mostly just likes to dump the bag of blocks out onto the floor, scatters them all over and moves on to making the next big mess without ever building anything. He also enjoys destroying the things I've built for him, but I know now he can stack them if he wants to - 90% of the time he doesn't want to though.

Does he have other issues with fine motor skills or is it too early to tell?

My son with classic autism has fine motor skills issues. He has been seeing an occupational therapist for over a year, as well as working with an ABA therapist who knows how to work on fine motor skills. (I could figure out how to do fine motor skills issues myself, but others were better at keeping him engaged. I'm more of a speech/reading person.)

Poor handwriting grip, poor handwriting appearance, difficulty brushing teeth and combing hair, difficulty holding scissors and cutting out shapes, trouble putting beads on string, trouble tying shoes, difficulty holding a fork or spoon correctly, difficulty drinking out of a cup, trouble opening packages, trouble dressing himself (zippers, buttons, and winter clothing in particular), etc. These are all fine motor skills issues if the child is old enough to perform these actions.

The thing with the cup reminds me that my son couldn't drink out of an open cup at all until he was about 2 1/2 I think .... he'd put his tongue over the lip of the cup and try to lap it up like a cat, and now when I give him a cup of water with a meal he'll eat his meal with one hand in the water, which drives his father crazy - I just ignore it for the most part ... as long as he's not pouring it all over the floor or his meal I figure it's not worth the aggravation. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

My kid is still too young for most of those things but up until only a few weeks ago he used to eat ONLY with his hands (and wipe them on his shirt!) He knew what the fork/spoon was for but just couldn't be bothered. After using an ABA technique he now uses the spoon fairly consistently.

Ah yes. My boy wipes his hands in his HAIR which is really annoying, as he hates us washing it. Threatening to wash it every day has helped tone down the wiping a bit though. He infinitely prefers to eat with his hands, but it is nothing to do with motor skills, as he has no issues with those (so far anyway!).

How did the ABA technique persuade him to use a spoon when he couldn't be bothered normally? Just curious. Most of our problem behaviours seem to revolve around persuading our boy to do things he doesn't want to do rather than teaching him things he can't do. I'm such a beginner at this though!

Washi, at your boy spreading the lego everywhere. Mine too. He is a box tipper, tower destroyer, rail track tornado, etc. Something sensory for him, I think. One day I'll get round to making him tidy up every time! How do you deal with it?

Yes. When we first gave my son a cup he used to flick the water all over the place. So for a while he used to get a bottle with a straw in it. But these days he does get a regular cup and drinks without any problems.

Ditto with our James. He likes to do all that then find two pieces the same and look at them for a long long time, while running from one end of the house to the other.