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

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http://www.healthyplace.com/anxiety-pan ... enu-id-60/

I've told all of you that my youngest (who'll be 4 in October) has been diagnosed with OCD, and his symptoms first appeared at age 2.5. Lately, he has been doing well on 10 mg/day of Prozac by day and a small dose of Clonidine at night. Although he is not 100% improved, he has pretty much stopped writing the alphabet over and and over again, and he is not even on a full dose of 20 mg/day. He is also able to stop what he is doing in order to use the potty, which is a big relief.

He no longer minds taking his meds anymore. He likes taking meds "just like Ben," his older brother, and likes going first.

Anyway, the above article mentions that OCD can show up in a child as young as 2 or 3 and can manifest as repeating numbers or the alphabet. I know of a couple of other alphabet repeaters on the spectrum--one with classic autism and the other with hyperlexia, but I have not researched how pervasive the issue is.

Interesting, thanks. Yeah my kid is the one writing letters over and over and I am worried this is what is holding back his development. For the past week or so he hasn't been doing it as much but he still does it a lot. Either that or just counting for no reason. He started doing it this morning when he woke up.

I know I have OCD tendencies as well. Not the fear/hand washing kind but I'll get fixated on certain topics or subjects for a while. I guess this is what they call a "special interest." A recent on is this - a year or so ago I noticed a HUGE claw on a chicken wing I was eating, and I spent the next few months constantly online researching feathered dinosaurs and ratites...

My husband's 80-year-old mother has a pretty bad case of OCD. She has to brush and floss her teeth for an hour a night while she watches "The Tonight Show" on TV. She has to use embroidery thread, not dental floss. Luckily, I go to bed pretty early, so I sleep through it if she happens to be visiting.

My husband can be OCD about neatness or how thing are organized.

While eating a pear today my son said "pear". This is not unprecedented as six months ago he said "cake". Maybe in a few years he will have completed a sentence . Joking aside its exciting!

That is great! I still remember when my older son said his first complete sentence, "Sharks eat fish." We had watched a video about sharks and I worked with him a little while until he repeated the above sentence.

I had to teach my older son to speak in sentences and to answer questions. The slideshows of flashcards and homemade books on my speech channel in "uploads"--I have many, many more homemade flashcards and books that are not on YouTube.

I had to teach him the names of thousands of common objects using flashcards, picture dictionaries, and speech movies. He never really picked up anything all by himself. Simple picture books and children's videos with the close captioning turned on were both helpful and entertaining.

He never naturally caught on how to form a sentence or answer a question, so I had to teach him that directly, too. Lots of repetition and working with him throughout the day on a daily basis.

The way he learned to speak was sort of like when I learned a second language (Spanish) back in school. I think that maybe pictures and visuals are like his first language and spoken speech is like his second language.

He's had a lot of testing, and the results are pretty interesting. After he starts school next week, maybe I'll finish putting together a film explaining his test results.

Nice!

My son actually greeted my when I came home today! He usually comes to the door but this is the first time he actually said something!

Great! Hearing about progress is so wonderful and encouraging!

Yay! My son smiles, and runs up and down, I remember when he would not look at me no matter what I did.

I was trying to teach my son to answer a question yesterday ... "what is your name?" ... some of the more amusing responses I got were: 1-2-3 cha-cha-cha!, Kid, assorted character names from Thomas and Friends (Thomas, Percy), Alphabet and 1-1-1-Ethan. He said Kid several times, I think because he knows he's a kid he really thought that was the right answer. Today he started randomly saying "I love you"!

Hearing them say, "I love you," is the best.

When he talks better, he will start saying, "I hate you," also, but they never really mean that.

That's great. My son has started saying "good morning" and "goodbye" at his daycare.

The only really strange answer I've ever gotten to a question was when I showed him a stuffed koala toy. I asked, "What is it?" and he started singing Waltzing Matilda. (The toy sings the song when you press the belly and I don't think he knows the word koala.)

A lot of the things my son says are quite strange but also very amusing which helps to make up for how difficult he can be. That's great about the "good morning" and "good-bye". And ROFL about what you said on that troll thread!

Well it's good your son is talking at least. We get discouraged because our son does not talk much.

Though this morning he answered the question "What do you want?" for the first time ever. Answer=candy. Typical three-year-old!

Great! It sounds to me like your kids are going to talk fine within a few years if you keep working with them. Whatever difficulties you may experience with the kids later on, your lives and your kids' lives are going to be a whole lot easier and better if they talk.

Thanks! That is the plan. We really don't care much about the other stuff at this point. We want to be able to have a conversation with him.

Today at his playgroup he said "hello" to one of the teachers and then "I'm sorry" to a kid after knocking over the blocks he was playing with.

I wonder why he says to many of these new things to people outside the family and not us???