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

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Your son is cute!

My kid does something similar, except instead of triangles its numbers...generally 4 or 11.

Do any of your kids have issues with separation anxiety? I have to sneak out of the house every morning or my son will start crying, run up to me, and grab my leg. Sometimes he even starts crying when I take out the trash or go to the bathroom...

My younger son with the OCD and probably AS had bad separation anxiety. I guess that he eventually just replaced that with OCD....

I have a video on my Autistic Kids Channel (user vids4autkids1) on YouTube of a little kids with autism and separation anxiety. According to the comments under the video, other kids on the spectrum have been noted to have separation anxiety. It was also mentioned in a book that I read about autism, I think.

Yes, my son's heart breaks whenever he sees his Dad drive off somewhere without him.

I just found this pamphlet on hyperlexia which is worth reading.

This definitely sounds like my kid. Lately he's been going to sleep hugging his magnadoodle!

http://judyanddavid.com/cha/whatishyperlexia.pdf

Between my two kids, all of these behaviors are expressed. Good pamphlet!

We have known my daughter (age 6) was hyperlexic shortly after she was diagnosed Autistic. When she was first learning to say words (no sentences yet) she was evaluated for school at age 3. They showed her flash cards with numbers and letters, I was shocked that she could name almost every one....I had no idea that she knew them. She will read words but not on request. Since we now have to teach her in a different language I was thinking it would be a problem but even though she does not speak much French she recognizes words already. She was also always very obsessed with numbers. When she was younger she had to count everything, we had to sort of deter her from that because we never got anywhere. She now counts sometimes to calm herself. She can also add and subtract numbers. She was recently evaluated for therapy here in France and she scored at a 7 year level for patterns and math and at a 8-9 year old level for abstract thinking based on visual cues. Most of the things in the PDF file you posted are things her therapists did with her, the schedules...the open ended questions, ect. She is doing very well considering she was diagnosed as severely autistic a few months before her 3rd birthday. Shes an amazing little girl even when she is being a poo which she is right now because she is so accustomed to therapy and school that summer vacation is difficult for her. We are trying to keep her occupied but its not easy. Fortunately her therapy center has some summer day camp things planned for both my kids for the next two weeks...whoo hooo!

Anyones kids hit themselves in the face sometimes? My son will do it occasionally when he realises something is happening that he didn't want. I think he gets very frustrated and he will scream and hit himself in the face quite hard once or twice. I'm sure its the frustration of not being able to communicate.

I think that it is probably a combination of frustration at not being able to communicate and anxiety.

My older son with classic autism didn't hit himself in the face, but he could be destructive--urinating on furniture, carving into an expensive table, throwing a large car (designed for a child to sit in) at a daycare center, etc. I think that some kids hurt themselves, some hurt others, and some go after objects when they are having trouble.

His Prozac, speech therapy, and work with an ABA therapist have seemed to have gotten most of his behaviors under control over the past three years. (He is almost seven).

Yesterday, we went to a birthday party with some other autistic kids and I was told that he seemed "normal," whatever that means. I told her that his behavior had much improved, he was on meds, and he still had learning issues.

Maddy used to bang her head on the floor and pull her hair. She was very frustrated that she could not communicate. I personally think that is the main thing. I cant imagine wanting something or hurting and not being able to tell anyone. I wish that you could have some in home therapy for him like Maddy had, it made a huge difference. The PECS helped a lot as she is very visual. I make some of my own PECS with google image if you dont have enough. Do you have those strips like I want ___ please?. She broke her arm once and could not tell us why she was in pain so I had a picture of a little girl.....now that I think about it I should have used a pic of herself....and would ask her where she hurt. Sometimes if they cant point if you give them a pen they can draw where it hurts. I think the strips helped Maddy the most because they were like sentences. Does he show any interest in letters, like magnet letters? If he does you might try to teach him to type on the computer or they have the electronic devices that you can put PECS in and it will say the words for him. I should think that something like that should be paid for in your sons circumstances. Maybe you need to lean on what ever government office or institution is in charge of getting help for special needs or handicapped children. Sometimes you have to downright threaten them to get what your kid needs. I know we had a lot of issues and a lot of excuses from people when we first got here until we got really ugly. We even took my daughter to one of the offices with a toy that played this annoying sound and let her push the button over and over again....they seemed to pay attention to us better that way, we called it the weapon ! Sometimes all you need to do is bring your child when they are in a "mood" and say...."Yeah, I need help"! !! !

These are some good ideas, using the PECS picture system to help communicate and move toward texting.

The president of the local Autism Society in my area has an adult son who is non-verbal but can text. He recently got a device that lets him "talk" by texting into it what he wants to say. I think that he texts on an elementary school level.

Others have found great success in using flashcards with pictures and text on them to teach basic vocabulary words and how they are spelled. I personally bought a bunch of phonics videos (available off the net from eBay, Amazon.com, or here in the U.S. at stores that sell used books and baby stuff) to get my older son started. You can also use free video learning tools to teach him some basic vocabulary and reading skills.

I have some super cute videos by Sesame Street and others in the "playlists" on my Reading Channel. Click on a letter of the alphabet, and about 20 videos featuring that letter, its sound, and words beginning with that letter will pop up. The link to the Reading Channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/vids4autistickids.

Also check out some of the channels that I've subscribed to on the Reading Channel--David Osaka, Sesame Street, etc.--lots of cute kids' stuff made by other people.

Other than one basic ad video for the channel that I made, everything else on the Reading Channel was made by other people. It is an on-line video library and completely free to use.

My Speech Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/vids4autkids3 is good, too, with materials made for a wide array of ages and abilities, from young children to young adults with special needs.

My kids use 2 used computers hooked to my computer via WiFi connections. They are in the living room so that I can monitor their Internet use and secured so that they cannot be moved.

I went to a birthday party for a nonverbal autistic girl yesterday. She turned 8. There were 11 children at the party, 10 of whom were autistic (including my younger son and another boy who were probably AS rather than classic autism). There were two sets of autistic identical twins, including one set of 11-year-old girls who both had classic autism, and one set of 6-year-old boys, one of whom appeared to have classic autism and the other AS.

It was held at a gym with people eating GFCF cake afterwards. (My kids are not on the GFCF diet, but that was what was served). It was kind of interesting, if anyone wants to hear about it.

How did the kids interact with each other? Did they play any games?

How did the cake taste? (I'm not interested in the diet, just curious.)

It was a pretty quiet birthday party.

My younger son (the one who has OCD and AS and will turn 4 in October) interacted with the six-year-old twin boy a little bit. We sat at a table near an exit, and both AS kids were fascinated by the "exit" sign and kept commenting on it.

My older son with classic autism (almost age 7) was seated between his younger brother and a new friend who is 8. Basically, his friend's mom would say, "M_______, ask Ben what his favorite thing to play on in the gym was." M______ would ask the question the question and Ben would answer it. Then, I would give Ben a question to ask M________.

My two kids were also interacting with each other a little bit. My younger son was doing silly things with a pair of sunglasses given to him at the party and Ben was comenting on it. "Look! Heath has the sunglasses on his chin!" That kind of thing.

One of the twin boys across from my sons couldn't tolerate the noise and had his ears covered. His mother was the one who thought that my kids seemed "normal."

The two 11-year-old twin girls were extremely quiet, attempting to get more food and drink without having to talk. Their mom was able to prompt them into making verbal requests for more juice rather than just handing her empty cups, etc.

Birthday girl didn't say anything, but smiled a little. Her sister, who was NT, was the chatterbox of the group.

One girl talked to herself. A boy went home before cake was served because he was not doing well.

The parents had arranged for the party to occur in an empty gymnastics classroom, and there was some parallel play going on earlier--kids jumping on a trampoline side-by-side, etc.

On a positive note, all the kids were really well-behaved. (I think that parents who knew that their kids wouldn't do well stayed home, for the most part.)

The kids didn't know each other well, so maybe they would have done better if they had all been in school together.

Basically, the parents had rented out space in the gym, but it appeared that just about no one was going to show up, so they sent out an invite to members of the Autism Society (the parents are active members). A few people with kids the right age decided to come.

I knew three of the moms, and the moms had fun seeing each other.

The cake was okay. (I cannot cook, so who am I to judge?)

Wow, this thread totally exploded!! I know I've been gone for a while, but I didn't forget you guys. I found a fb group of parents with children who have dual diagnosis Down Syndrome and Autism. You can imagine my joy at finding such a group. Children with DS/ASD are a completely unique creature I have to say, and yet they are all so very much alike.

Eric finally got his diagnosis for Autism, and even though I have known for years that he had it, my heart still sunk to hear the Dr. confirm it.

There's so much information in here that I have to catch up on. I'll be around more, I just needed to bond with my other group for a bit. There is far more useful information on this board, as it seems like the DS/ASD parents don't really discuss function much. It seems as though some of them have just resigned themselves to having a severely ret*d, non-functioning child for the rest of their lives. I'm not ready to give in to that just yet. I know it's gonna be hard, but you have to try. But at the same time I also know that all of my efforts may end up being futile. I suppose that's the hardest part to get my head around. These two disabilities are so limiting on their own, but together they seem to feed off each other in some of the most destructive ways.

At the end of the day, all I really care about is the communication. I don't care if I have to change his diapers until he's 30 years old, but I want him to be able to communicate with others, It is one of the most vital aspects of being a human being I think.