16,5 months toddler some questions

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Hi there!!

Now I'd like to ask you all about your experiences with this issue we have here at home.
Our son is now 16,5 months and has nearly no eye contact, mostly doesn't respond to us and most of the time everything he gets in contact with in play it has to go his way or else he gets angry and will fall into a tantrum or breath holding spells...
Now the fact he reacts so angry is not great but it's doable. But that he doesn't respond to our contact makes it pretty hard for us to reach out to him, to learn him things. Just to 'read' a book is most of the time not a party with him because it has to go "open-close-open-close", when we interrupt that you can guess his reaction.
I hope you here can give us some help and tips how to deal with this and what kind of other ways there are to learn him games of his can played different. to learn him to talk is the same hard thing. as long as he doesn't reacts to us, learning him stuff will be not an easy task (not that I expect that to)

The second thing is, his tantrums. His reaction to real pain is sometimes actually hardly no reaction or cry. Other, his reactions to all that is different than what he wanted to will end up in screaming crying and the breath holding spells. At the moment he has hit me on perpes becaus he got so angry for just turning him around and away from the door he was sitting against. stamping his feet, got 2 steps backwards away from me, he came back started hitting me twice and again moved away from me.... I don't know how we can react to that reactions of him properly. ignoring breaks my heart and the little boy should need the love and confidential arms from us! but it doesn't solve a thing. And especially now he started hitting, he could start doing this to his (twin) brother ofcourse. Something wich in this age I surely don't want to see to happen..
What is your experience with this type of situations?

Hopefully I can find some awnsers here:) thanks in advance!!

Have a great evening and greets from holland

He is showing very early signs of autism - no eye contact, sensory dysfunction and meltdowns, please see your doctor for a referel to a psychologist.

He is in early internevention and till so far his first results where "infantile autism" precise diagnoses won't be happening normally in holland.
Although I have to say, any diagnose will not help the problems solve... That's why i hope i can find tips and help here.
Before we are really helped with the early intervention we will be weeks or so further. untill then we want to find a way to guide him with less meltdowns (that's a better way to say than tantrums indeed) and a way to learn him things in a better way for him

The best thing you can do to help teach him is to get down on the floor with him and follow his lead. Take whatever catches his interest and explore it with him and try to make connections to other things. If he wants to open and close the book, (if you don't already do this) say with him as he does it "open the book, close the book" or count with him as he does it. Maybe he likes to open and close the book a certain number of times before he wants you to read. Or you could make that a rule, for example, we'll open and close the book three times then we will read it.

I used to (and sometimes still do) sing my son's name and that would get him to turn and look at me or at least stop what he was doing and pay attention where just saying his name in a normal tone of voice would get no response at all.

Try to learn what frustrates him and avoid it if possible or warn him before it happens if it is unavoidable. Be firm about not hitting, I say this but of course my 5 year old still hits me sometimes but at elast he feels bad about it afterwards. I usually know when its coming and try to protect myself from really getting hurt. He chucked a baseball at me yesterday though and I turned only just in time to get it in the back instead of the face!

There's lots of good info on this site if you search around! Welcome and good luck!

To get him started with speech, I would use language videos for autistic babies from Babybumblebee.com. (You can also find them used on Amazon.com). You put a TV and VCR (or DVD player) in his play area and play it whenever you are not working with your son.

BrainyBaby videos are also good, as is Baby Wordsworth from Baby Einstein.

I would buy every alphabet video you can find also. They are very entertaining for babies and have lots of vocabulary words.

Also, I would use flashcards with him with pictures and words on them. Just show him the picture flashcard and say what it is without expecting a response. Do this while he is eating, sitting in the bathtub, etc. Or try giving him a small toy to keep his hands occupied while you work with him.

Speak slowly and clearly.

Visual aids and repetition can perform wonders with a child with good visual skills but who is otherwise a slow learner.

I had a lot of the same issues with my older son with classic autism. The techniques above eventually worked, though. As long as he does not fuss about what you are doing, he is fine with it.

Hey!!

@Bombaloo, Nice tips, thanks! The part with the book is indeed how he learned what means open or close the book, the door or his shoes for example About the counting that's a good tip!! I'm gonna use that one, thank you! I actually never paid attention to that if there is a certain number of times.

I tried the singing-part this morning, It seems to work! Not totally but he did respond a little better to it. At least he looked at my eyes for a second or 3. If I'm dancing to his teletubbies music he does pay attention so the rhythm gives a good effect! Thank you

The hitting we also (of course) don't allow. At the moment when he gets angry to us we tried to ignore it. But when he actually hits I grab his hand (which of course sets him up even more...) and say with a firm but relaxed and clear voice no, you cannot hit me that hurts. Now with his age his hitting doesn't yet hurt us to bad fortunately. oef, the baseball thrown to you.. I hope (but I think that will..) that won't happen here... is your back okay?

@Blondeambition, Thanks for those titles! Maybe he at least get pick it up in English (we are dutch) so he can make himself clear.
The flashcards I have done that some time but he doesn't seem interested. just for a little while (about a minute or so) and then he gets his frustration off at my keyboard, not very good for that thing lol. We standard talk slowly and clear to both boys.


I keep wondering, when he doesn't respond to me by looking or turning to me, and I would still name everything he touches (something we did since the kids were born actually) will he pic that up or just wouldn't hear it? I still would go on with that because his brother does seem to pick it up.


Thanks for all these good help!!

http://youtu.be/v7BsViK5OVM

I don't know how much is available in your own language, but don't forget that you can make your own flashcards and slideshows, too. I made the little slide show above a while back using a PC, a movie making computer program, a scanner, and a microphone.

I made the book that you see in the slideshow, too--cut pictures out of a cheap calendar, glued them to some paper, and added my own words.

Earlier on, I would draw the pictures myself and write the words, but I cot lazy and started taking them out of magazines, calendars, books, etc. I would just cut a bunch of pictures out that I liked, affix them to papers or notecards, and add my own words.

You can see some more examples of flashcards/books that I made (free) on my Speech and Vocabulary Channel on YouTube in "uploads" and a whole bunch of helpful material made by other people in "playlists."

You can see my kids in the "uploads" section on my Reading Channel on YouTube.

Ow thanks!! Actually very logical to make some by myself... Perhaps I will upload it aswell to help out other parents in holland

By the way, cute kids you have!

I don't have any experience with an autistic child that young (the youngest autistic kid I've personally met was 5 years old) but I can share what I've done with older kids.

I'd say figure out first how to play with him without any meltdowns for a lengthy period of time. Then find what degree of 'not going his way' makes him mildly annoyed but not enough for a meltdown, and do that thing once, then go back to what he likes for a long time. Eventually, he'll get a better tolerance for a bit of frustration.



It's often said that autistic kids have trouble understanding neurotypical (NT) body language, but many people don't realize that it goes both ways - NTs also have trouble reading autistics. A lot of autistic kids seem like they're in their own world and uninterested in people, but in reality they simply show interest in odd and hard-to-notice ways. For example, peeking at you out of the corner of his eye rather than looking directly at you. Try to see if you can spot stuff like that, things he does more towards his parents than towards other adults.

Also, you might want to look into the Son-Rise program. I don't agree with a lot of their rhetoric, but they do have some great ideas for how to get a connection with an autistic kid. Basically, what you do is you sit down and imitate everything they do, and try to follow their lead in activities. For example if the kid is lining up blocks, you pick a block and add it to the line, or if that makes him mad you make your own line of blocks nearby.



He's still very young - plenty of NT children his age don't talk either. The upper limit of normal for age at first words is 18 months. In addition, a significant percentage of autistic kids seem to have little or no speech until about 4 or 5, when they suddenly go through a developmental spurt and catch up in verbal skills. However, if an autistic kid hasn't said their first word by age 5, they'll probably be low functioning.

To encourage him to talk, one of the best things you can do is talk a lot to him. When he's playing, narrate what he's doing. And if he makes a sound, repeat it back to him to encourage him to make sounds.

In a year or two, if he's still not talking, you could put him into speech-language therapy or an ABA program. ABA is basically a system where you use prompting and rewards to encourage desired behavior. You can also 'shape' behavior by rewarding him for doing something similar to it. For example, in training a kid who babbles to talk, you could pick a favorite food who's name is easy to say (eg a cookie), and hold it out in front of him and say "say 'cookie'". At first you might give him the cookie if he makes any sound at all. Then, once he's consistently making a sound to get the cookie, start giving it only if he makes a 'k' sound. And so forth, until he can say the word. You can do this with other things by setting up a situation where he'll want to communicate something, such as teaching 'help' by giving him a tightly closed jar containing something he wants.



A lot of autistic kids react differently to sensations, with some things that most people find painful not affecting them, while other things most people are fine with are painful to the autistic kid. For example, many autistic kids find eye contact painful, which is why they avoid it. And many autistic kids find being touched unpleasant as well. If your son doesn't like being hugged when he's upset, just try sitting beside him and talking in a calm, soothing voice. Or once you've found something you can do that he really enjoys, try doing that.



Twin? Identical or fraternal? Identical twins of autistic kids are almost always autistic as well, but fraternal twins generally aren't.

Anyway, yeah, you'd need to watch for that. Keep an eye on them and if he hits his brother, separate them. Although some autistic kids are only aggressive towards adults or children and not both - it all depends on what triggers the aggression. Your son sounds like he wants to control you a lot, which could be because you have a lot of power to do things to him that he may not like.

If he does hit his brother, you should tell him firmly 'no' and separate the two, and see if you can find something he doesn't like (but doesn't get very upset by) to do to punish him. For example maybe hold his hands still for a brief amount of time. You can also try teaching your other son strategies to deal with his hitting, like saying 'no' and moving away.

By the way, sometimes siblings of autistic kids can have issues due to the autistic kid getting all the attention because of his difficulties. So try to make sure you have some positive alone time with your other son on a regular basis, especially if you're doing one-on-one therapy with your autistic son.

@Ettina
About the meltdowns is a good and logical idea! thankyou! I know whenn he is playing his game and I move or add things whenn he doesn't see it it's okay for him most of the time. With reading a book for example when he gose in his open-close-thing and I put my finger on a picture and name it, I keep my finger pointed there even when he turns the book closed, then he gets interested in playing with my finger. Sometimes he allows it, sometimes he doesn't. When he does allows it he does pays attention to my pointing finger (which I think is a good start ) perhaps this is the way to lower his frustration in a play if we can keep this up and go on step by step. You got me thinking!

What you say about the body language I totally agree, That's also a reason why I do monitor them both in their play. How they act to themselfs, to others, to each other, to animals and so on. Untill now I did discovered when he is trying to discover someones behavior he does come towards that person but won't look at their eyes. Just the mouth or anything near that (the way I learned to talk actually as my mom said). But when he really is hurt or upset he goes away or sits still to scream. Though not in contact, but it is his way to make his point I think. To bad he doesn't always have the same patterns in this. in good days he is completely the other way around... Also about the difference between us and strangers, that's a hard part for me to understand with him. he doesn't really seem to care who reacts or calls him. Only until now 1 person he really reacts very good too (even with the book reading). We still haven't found out why. Will still be on our lessons-list

I'm going to look up some info about that Son-Rise programm, thankyou:)

I know his talking isn't really a delayed thing now:) but I meant actually I want to prevent it, what makes it hard for me is I don't know how actually. Now with all the help here we can go on a new track and way to try
The ABA therapy I have seen (youtube) some about that and I automatically been doing something similar like it. only not with the first sound like in coockie "k". just the words and waiting for a reaction. Unfortunately he gets frustrated about that often so perhaps that's something we have to wait a little while until his temper is a bit less frustrated.

Sitting down nest to him wouldn't help I think, most of the time I do come near him but don't puck him up right away. This because I want him to learn he also has to come to me and show me what is going on. Now he did 'learned' himself when he is in pain he graps the painfull spot (head, feet, hands etc) but not allways. Now when I come towards him when he is in (not to much ofcourse) pain or atleast needs me somehow, I come and kneel about a meter away from him and call him to come to me "B. come to me if you need help" or "I am right here, come towards me if you are in pain". This way I give him that choice and he has learned to come to me some times. Unfortunately I think he doesn't understand his own wants and needs yet because when he comes to me he sometimes get even more frustrated and angry to start hitting/kicking me, throwing himself in all strange movements and bending including back arching, flapping arms & legs etc. to get away and so I let him go. When he is in pain or anger it doesn't work (yet) to for example give or show him his ball wich he loves so much to distract him. sometimes it does work if the dogs start barking but I think that is more his shock-reaction to that, not a good idea with the dogs.

Fraternal twins:) sofar our other son doesn't show much signs, atleast not what causes him problems untill now. eager to learn, talks a few words, (eye)contact made enough. Just flapping, hyperfocussing and not very interested in other kids. more a loner I think. as long as he doesn't show problems we will wait until it would become really necessarily. Allthough the early intervention is primary for B. (who this is all about) , his brother W. is also checked closely while he is ofcourse also there most of the time.

Seems at this moment, B. hits everything he can at the point he starts. I have seen his brother bite him (oh, they are so sweet to each other most of the time... ) and just today I saw B bite him aswell. So I think this is a way for him to get things his way now he sees it works. He hits, I leave him alone for a minute to rest on his own. He bites his brother and he gets the toy for that moment untill I got it away from him and gave it back.

Now We still have a playpen in the room mostly for his brother W. when he is not listening for to long. Would it be helpful to use it with B. as well? I have done this with B. now for a time or 2 just to get him his own place for a minute and away from all the things he had thrown around. But I'm not sure if he can get the link between not listening and going to the pen because he didn't seemed to care at first. He is a smart boy because what he wants to learn, he can learn quickly. but to set him apart when he starts hitting (or even bite) would the playpen be the option or is this to rigorous? Holding his hands still does makes im more upset as I tried that unfortunately.

The thing about the one-on-one time with each kid is also very precious to me. Both of them have their time each day. One time with mom, other time dad. Going outside, going up stares to read in a quit and calm environment or just a play. I think it's best for both kids to have their parents to give them their own time with us. twins or not, autistic (signs, there is no full diagnose yet) or NT. That doesn't matter to me, every child should have their own special time:-) did that since the first beginning. I totally agree with you there!


Thanks for all the help here! I think I'm kinda feeling in the good place here allready.

You can make pictures for him (typically called PECS) to help to communicate. I print pictures from google images, they have a lot of good ones on there. Like If you are going to the doctor you can show him the picture (PEC) of the doctor. Autistic children tend to understand pictures more than words. You should make a no hitting picture. Find a picture of someone hitting or draw if you are good at that, then draw a red circle with a line through it to help him understand this means NO. Look up Autistic PECS cards online and you will get some good ideas. You can buy the pre made cards if you want but I think its cheaper to make your own. I also got a laminator machine to keep my cards from getting destroyed, if you are not familiar it covers things in plastic.
Also singing and using music helps a lot. My daughter used to line up plastic animals so we used a song about animals and would put them on our heads which caused her to look up at us and engage more with us. Also blowing soap bubbles will typically seriously motivate an autistic child not to mention calm them down. I have to leave for an appointment but Ill try to post some more ideas for you later.