Siblings with AS? Trying not to worry too much

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Hello all, my 7 y/o DS was diagnosed with AS at the end of October. Prior to that he had been dx with ADHD and has been on meds somewhat successfully though we have to change either the med or the strength every 6mos - year. Anyway, my son was diagnosed with AS only a few months after we had our second child, a DD who is now 11mos old. Since then I have found myself literally paranoid about her, worrying that this delay or that behavior could be a sign of Autism. Ive visited the Autism Speaks website and watched the videos of the children several times. I have tried to get statistics on siblings and havent been able to find much. Ive talked with my Pediatrician about it but no surprise, havent gotten much feedback. Im even considering taking her to a developmental Pediatrician just to get answers. I wish I could calm the fears I have but so far, Im not having a lot of luck. Has anyone else gone through this before?

I'm afraid I had it easier than you in a couple of ways. First, at the time my second was born, we didn't know yet that my son was AS. We just knew he was different, special, and a handful! My second was came out of the box different from the first in every way. My second is a girl, and she was the calmest, easiest baby, doing all the things we had envisioned our first doing that he steadfastly refused to conform to.

I honestly believe that infants and toddlers deserve to be enjoyed as they are, not thinking about what anything means. Difficult babies can turn into easy kids, and easy babies can turn into difficult kids. And so on. I think my biggest regret when my son was young was letting myself get carried away with all the "maybe this means ..." ideas. With my second, I just sat back and enjoyed her. Maybe because she was easy, or maybe because I had learned something ... I'm not sure. Either way, the best we can do for a very young child is learn to understand how this unique one ticks, and anything that gets us obsessing about what lies ahead seems counterproductive.

Because there is a genetic component to AS, once you know it exists in the family, I am sure it is totally natural to wonder. Which is why my not knowing made it easier. I don't know how you roll back that knowledge and go back to being able to just enjoy the baby for who he or she is, without trying to answer all those questions as quickly as possible. But, still, I think a parent needs to try. There isn't anything you can do when they are so little, and it does distract you from the task at hand, the one of responding to the unique individual in front of you.

Even if your daughter is AS, she is still a unique individual, and everything about her will be different than it was with your son. I think the 5 years between when my son was diagnosed and yours was have created too much negative awareness, that is feeding fear that doesn't need to exist. I hear from many young parents the same fear, even without one sibling already diagnosed. Look at your lovely and unique son and remember that the world didn't end with his label, and it won't end if your daughter does end up with the same diagnosis. She will still be your baby, and she will still be unique, and she will still want your love more than anything.

Hi Aimless1, wow - we are living in parallel universes. My older son is turning 7 in June, and he was diagnosed first with SPD (sensory processing disorder) last Novermber, and a few months later (February of this year) he was diagnosed with AS. We had our second child about 8 months before his AS diagnosis, he'll be a year old in a week.

I strongly suspect my younger son will be on the spectrum. He is not displaying any overt signs that a professional would be willing to diagnose at this point, but I see a lot of red flags like hand flapping (something my older son never did), leaning over to see things from different angles, fascination with lights, etc. There is always a chance these will turn out to be unrelated to the spectrum, but at this point I will be more surprised if he is not on it, than if he is.

And to be honest... I am OK with this likelihood. Is it something I would have chosen for him? No. Will I be devastated? No. Will we be more prepared to help him live his most fulfilling life, than we were initially with our older son? Yes. Will it change the way I feel about him? Absolutely not. So... I mostly have come to accept that this is our family's path, that it's been placed before us for a reason. And we are making a conscious decision to be up to the challenge, to live our lives fully and completely, and we see our mission as one where we demand change from the world more than we demand it from our kids.

It's a scary journey, but also empowering and deeply meaningful.

My best advice is to not obsess about signs in your younger child. Accept that what will be, will be. Statistics will tell you absolutely NOTHING about your daughter. Keep your eyes open for signs, but not fixed on them. If she is or if she isn't, letting yourself get too consumed by fear means you will be robbed of these precious days when she is so little, these days that we both know fly right by and are gone seemingly in the blink of an eye. Just enjoy her

The thing about AS is that every case is different, so it is just hard to pinpoint especially at that young of an age. My son was delayed in sitting up( 10mos), delayed in crawling (14mos) , delayed in walking (21mos.) However, he had great eye contact, and was lovable, loved to be held, babbled, had words on time. I had him in physical therapy, and everyone he worked with just thought he had low muscle tone. No one thought he had autism. The one thing that he did that had me concerned was that at 1 yr. old, he would be perfectly content to lay on his back, stare at the ceiling fan, and flap his hand. We thought it might be just because he was frustrated because he couldn't get around like he wanted to.

Once he started walking, I thought oh, he is going to be fine. He had lots of words, but he was not pointing to anything or showing me anything. He seemed to have trouble following directions. Then at 2 yrs old, we noticed he was memorizing scripts from books and tv shows. That was the final red flag that made us bring him in at 2.5 to get a diagnosis.

All I can say is just keep your eye on it. Just try to love your daughter and interact with her as much as possible. My son is an only child, and thank God I was able to stay home with him, because I was in his face 24/7 and I think that may have helped, because he is almost 5 now and seems to be progressing ok so far. He speaks in full sentences now, and most of what he says makes sense. He loves to say nonsense stuff too!

I do believe that early intervention is huge, so if your concerns persist, then maybe you could go ahead and eventually have her evaluated. But at this point, I would just love her and cherish her. I truly had to make an effort to enjoy my son's baby and toddler years, because since he was my first and only, I had nothing to compare him to. A lot of my days were filled with worry and fear. Looking back, I am glad I did make the effort at times to just let it all go and enjoy my precious son for who he is!! !

I know it's hard but I think worrying makes the situation worse when all you can really do is wait and see what happens. I was really good as a baby and hardly even cried but had delay in sitting, crawling, walking etc and used to be totally ritualistic even when I was very, very young. I think if your daughter does has AS you'll be able to tell but it'll look very different to in your son because it tends to be more subtle in girls.

The other issue is that your daughter might have aspie traits without actually being a full-blown aspie because my sister had loads of traits including developmental delay and clumsiness (although not as bad as mine), and also had behavioural problems when she was younger, but is actually very good at social interaction as an adult and has a good job as a psychologist and a happy relationship.

All you can do is wait and see. Even if your daughter does have AS it isn't the end of the world, once you know what it is and what the strengths and weaknesses are you just have to try to work around it as far as possible and it'll be nice for her that her brother has it as well. I wish my sister DID have it so I wasn't alone!

Good luck x