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

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My daughter when she was very young and learning to speak used to say something like "Toooooooooo finidy dee-yonnn!! !

But yeah quite pleased that James shows the understanding he does. He likely understands more than we suspect, but its just that these are the only times he demonstrates it to us, that and when Buzz proves to Woody he can fly (falling with style!), James gets really excited and giggles and jumps up and down.

That's great! My son just started actually paying attention to TV shows. (He is 3.) Before he only liked the theme songs and ending credits.

That definitely shows that he understands that something is scary and then something sad happened, thats awesome!
Its odd what will scare my kids sometimes. Like we watched Old Yeller and I explained to my son (9 year old aspie) that it would be sad at the end because the boy had to shoot his dog because it had rabies and I explained the entire thing. How it was in the old west and they didnt have medicine so they had to put him to sleep by shooting him. He said he still wanted to see it. He enjoyed the movie up until Old Yeller starts growling and snarling then that was it....my son totally freaked out. It took us hours to calm him down and promise him that our dogs, cats, rabbit and he himself can not get rabies because our dogs and cats are vaccinated and his rabbit Shadow only goes outside in his cage. Then he asked if bats have rabies so I told him if he was ever bitten by a bat that they have medicine to keep him from getting sick......Phew, no more classic Disney movies around here!

My oldest who had early onset Bi Polar disorder that our doctor thinks started around age 2 would only watch commercials for a long time. Hed run back and forth and as soon as a commercial would come on he would freeze and stare at the TV. Strangely enough the first things I got him to watch on tv (aside from commercials) were old black and white comedies like Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and Charlie Chaplin....another strange thing was that he understood the humor. He also liked the ones with no sound and would laugh even though he could not read yet.

Also about the "Low functioning" thing....they called my daughter "severe". Her first diagnosis was severe receptive and expressive language disorder then classic autism. Now she can speak and she has better receptive and expressive language so she is considered more on the "high functioning" end. I dont like the words either as they do not accurately describe some people, such as some may appear outwardly lower functioning but actually be just as intelligent or more intelligent than some NT people....as was mentioned before. I think we should use more effected, less effected by certain things....or we should just use the word Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder. It is hard to describe. I can say that my son has Asperger's but even that has a spectrum but I will say, going off topic slightly that there is clear differences between my daughter and my son and then there are things that are very similar. I like the term Aspie and Ill probably always use it but I agree with just using Autism Spectrum Disorder. I think if people accept it more of a broad based issue than they wont look at your Aspie and say that he/she doesnt look/seem autistic. People used to say that about my daughter when she was younger because I think when they are smaller people are more accepting of odd behaviors (odd to them not to us) even hand flapping. After my daughter turned 4 or so we started getting more staring and it was and is more obvious that she has autism. Although I will say when she was between 3 and 4 people at the store would try talking to her and Id have to explain "she doesnt really talk yet" and they would then ask how old she was so I would say she had autism and they would either just smile and walk away or say that they have a nephew or neighbor with autism or say something stupid like "Oh Im sorry"....to which I would say "Why?" and make them feel even more uncomfortable, what can I say Im a blunt aspie and I think people need to learn not to be so rude even if they really dont mean to be. I would explain that we thought she was perfect so there was nothing to be sorry for or about. That just reminded me when my daughter started talking she would repeat everything she heard so we would be in the grocery store (when still in the US) and someone would be arguing with their kid and the kid would say something like "you never get what I want" and of course Maddy had to repeat it about five times !

That's cool. It's mostly kids' cartoons he's been watching. He seems to like Gumby.

Well, on other autism forums, I've seen people posting who say they cannot speak! And funny thing is, they are always much more articulate than the majority of the forum posters.

I know a 13/14 year old who is trying to get his biography published. His mother gave me a draft to read. He was considered low IQ at 5 and non-verbal. After 8 yrs he finally spoke his first word. Within a couple of years he was speaking and writing. He is still not able to speak in public with much confidence but speaks confidently to his parents. Most importantly his written English is university level and his academic performance is at the so called genius level.

In his biogrpahy he is quite bitter about health professionals who wrote him off. He is also unhappy with his parents for putting him through ABA.

Thats interesting and unusual, but I would imagine there must have been other indicators of intelligence or capabilities at 5 years old that people surely would have noticed if they had looked hard enough. I mean that intelligence must have always been there, it wouldn't have just popped along at age 8.

Sounds like Tracker has some competition! Does he want to publish traditionally or is he going to self-publish something like a Kindle edition? Feel free to ask me any questions about this process because I myself and trying to get a (fiction) book published.

Have any of your Auties learnt to swim after a fashion? My son loves the water and when I take him to the pool he goes to where it's too deep for him and sort of kicks and thrashes to just keep floating with just his eyes and mouth above water which is what he likes, but he can't swim and he goes under fairly often and I see these little eyes looking up at me in panic, but it doesn't deter him thats for sure.

In fact I'm not even sure if it would be possible to teach him, I can sure imagine all the difficulties but I'm wondering if I should just see if I can somehow get him to wear goggles and then he could look under the water as a starter?

The boy is not terribly unusual as my brother also had a speech delay up to the age of 5 and didn't start communicating properly till 8. Difference of course is my brother was never diagnosed and once his speech came along the collective memory of his speech delay vanished for him, his friends and my parents. He's quite NT on appearances, you wouldn't guess.



I have not been in contact with the mother since 2010. It was an absolute coincidence that she came to me with the manuscript as she knew nothing about my daughter but wanted me to read his draft because of my background in scientific publishing. The biography fills a gap in the literature on autism as there are few autistic adults who have written a in depth experience of their years with autism. For this boy the period he was non-verbal was still very fresh in his mind.

The boy's autobiography delves into his experiences but also his philosophy and emotional state. I think when he does get it published it will be fairly unique in it's honesty and his response to therapy. I recall the writing was incredibly mature. At first I did suspect he obtained assistance from an older person to write for him. After finishing the draft I came to the conclusion it was his wording.

I told him he had to remove some of the more raw emotional stuff that was reminiscent of a 13 year old throwing a tantrum.

What do you guys make of the whole Casein free, Gluten free diets?
I've always thought it must be a load of bollocks. I tend to put my faith in evidential science not peoples anecdotes, and I would assume if there were merits to such things then the professionals would be onto it. I do know people who swear it has made their kids better but I put that down to placebo thinking.
Has anyone tried GFCF?

Hey, figured it was only a matter of time before this came up in here. I tend to agree, the whole biomed/DAN/GFCF scene is a loan of crap, these DAN guys are just selling false hope to desperate parents who throw all critical thinking skills out the window.

I mean, sure, if you have celiac or food alergies then yeah, the GFCF diet will help you. But no way this is gonna "cure" autism. The theory, which originates from the discredited Dr. Wakefield, is that the MMR vaccine overloads kids' immune systems, which then causes the pseudo-scientific "leaky gut syndrome," which you combat with GFCF.

And for what it's worth they don't even give the MMR here in Japan, they split it up into two shots. The vaccine schedule here is much reduced compared to the US one, probably close to what Jenny McCarthy et al are now pushing...hmmm.

My daughter took swimming lessons for two years and still can not really swim. You should have him tested for muscle tone and coordination. My daughter has low muscle tone in her legs and can not coordinate her arms and legs so she could put her face in and kick but her legs were not strong enough to go far and her feet would go down. Still I think being in the water is good therapy for our kids.
I was going to PM you with this but Ill just post it here. Have you seen anything like this? http://inhealth.cnn.com/speech-recovery ... id=t1_rss1
Its a PECS talking device.....probably very expensive but I should think it should be paid for by medical insurance or however it works there. Here in France the doctor gives you a prescription and the handicap people pick up half the cost and then the insurance pays for part which leaves us a small amount to pay. We have to get my daughter a push chair...its like a big stroller because she is 6 and due to her leg problems she can not walk long distances. She also spends a lot of time on her back playing, she reads with her feet, ect. She can jump on the trampoline and stuff for awhile but she gets tired easily so when we go shopping she is hanging on us or the cart or she will just lay in the isle ! Right now we have a little old umbrella stroller that is too small and hard to push with her in it and she is too big for the seat in the shopping cart.
Also I agree that the taking gluten or dairy out of your childs diet should only be done once an allergy has been identified. An allergy to gluten is called Celiac and it can be tested with a blood test or you can try to remove gluten for a month or so and see if it helps....but if your son had Celiac he would have a lot of intestinal pain and issues but it can also cause problems with the brain. A milk allergy is also easy to test for and not nearly as serious as Celiac.

We have some good threads about food issues. Some kids do have some, and I think it's pretty easy to understand that a child that doesn't feel well isn't going to function at his best ... so solving the food issue leads to kids who appear to function better. My son, we've figured out, pretty much by luck, shouldn't eat soy. The most common sensitivity does seem to be gluten, with cassien or lactose behind, but having a child actually sensitive to both is rare. Eggs and certain food dyes are also common issues. It definitely takes detective work, and gluten sensitivities are hard to ferret out because they follow a different pattern than most others.

My overall feeling with DAN! has been that there is too much hocus pocus, fed by desperate parents, but that doesn't mean they've never gotten anything right. I think they lucked onto something with the GFCF, and that is that high percent of ASD kids DO have food sensitivities, but didn't look into it hard enough to find the real cause. On this forum, where we've had adults testing these diets on themselves, I feel like we get closer.