Toddlers and young children

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My question is specifically about young children. I have recently posted about how my 19 month old has been diagnosed with ASD and got wonderful advice from people. We are going through all of the hurdles to get him therapy and learning as much as we can. In our case our son is sensitive to light. He squints a lot, walks on toes, and is always staring at a light source. He also completely stopped eye contact. Does anyone have any advice as to how to engage such a young kid, and how to get him to learn. Its even impossible to get his attention with toys. I am concerned that this is his best time to improve but I cant get him interested in anything. If we put him in a feeding chair he cries and gets cranky. Any advice would be welcome.

A good place to start is getting him enrolled in an ABA program. They will help to walk you through specific strategies for improving his social skills. There are a variety of programs like pivotal response training, TEACCH and Verbal Behavior that are based in ABA and are very focused on getting a child socially interested in others and playing with toys in appropriate ways. Within one of those programs they would typically start by taking an inventory of the things that he does like and the skills he possesses and then move from there to design a curriculum tailored for him. There are so many intricate and specific skills that you'll need along the way that I hesitate to give you small pieces of advice. You're much better off getting him started with some ABA and learning from experts and experience as you go. Good luck!

At those ages I took my son to a co-op school where even toddlers can attend (provided the parent does as well). sometimes what you cant seem to do, when around other children of the same age they tend to like to learn from and mimic those other children. best advice is to expose your child to his peers of around the same age, then watch how they interact.

Will he sit in your lap looking at what you look at more happily than in the feeding chair? Or sit next to the adult? Or on a cushion can work.

My daughter was much more interested in toys when she was around over children. But she engaged more with me than with other children. So I think observe what makes your child comfortable with different people and different situations and use what works for that situation.

Let him pick the toy, copy what he does with it, and try to make a connection where you are "getting" what is so fascinating about it for him. Search for "Floortime Stanley Greenspan" on youtube, and you will find examples of how to enter into his play and expand upon it.

What Zette said I so much agree with.

The ABA people can help, but that is an educational learning intervention.

It is absolutely crucial that your child forms bonds with human beings. Many, probably most children with ASD, though benefitting from help with peers, gravitate toward adults as understanding and relating to them better and more.

Because adults are more understanding it is easier to form those human connections with adults without which connections with peers will not be possible.

I feel very strongly how essential it is that you find a way to enter your child's world. If he is interested in toys he picks up on his own, lay the toy you think he may like out and wait for him to approach it. He may find the demand to interact overstimulating, but all children are born, I believe, with the capacity to connect. If you find the way to do so on his terms, he will do far better than if he must always engage on others terms.

ABA can be good. And the experts can help enormously. But only parents/caregivers can actually form that bond without which your child's life will be forever missing something. So sit next to or lay on the floor next to or walk next to your child, perhaps he can share attention with you---an important skill to develop---as you learn to share attention with him.

You can relate to your child, I see in your posts a great deal of understanding. It is natural too mourn for where he is not, who he is not. Do so with your wife, your family, your friends, the professionals, and here. But don't mourn for who he is when you are with your son, recognize who he is, celebrate who he is, and find ways to enjoy who he is.

A tall order I know. But you CAN do this. And it will help your child toward the best life he can have.

I would echo what was already said. If you can enjoy what he enjoys with him, you are building the foundations for him to try what you want to do, too.

My son was into the lining up/sorting kinds of things, and I would just sit there and do it with him. Sometimes he would cry if his fine motor skills did not allow him to align things up perfectly. Sometimes he would cry if I would try to line things up not according to his intended schema. (He would often line things up in size order or according to color, and I did not immediately know this.)

I learned so much about him by doing this. I occasionally tried to do the "normal things" and honestly am not convinced in the logic in pushing that too hard. I was driving myself crazy (b/c I was advised to) with it for awhile and then started only revisiting feeding stuffed animals and all that stuff sometimes to see if the window was there.

I don't necessarily tell you to do that b/c I know it is not the standard advice, but I personally don't have regrets about not pushing harder with it. Maybe more persistence would have sped things up, but it seemed to me that when he would mimic me to make me happy it was not the same as when he was developmentally really ready and doing it spontaneously. He wasn't building empathy from it it until then, and he had other ways to work on abstraction that he preferred.

He mainly seemed bemused that I was feeding an inanimate object and maybe thought I was not so bright. He was humoring me, and I don't necessarily know that developmental readiness is furthered by getting a kid to humor you. Emile may be able to speak to that theory and what the thought process is on that, but we seemed happiest just enjoying my son's interests at that point.

Everyone gave great advice. I would say the basic premises of Floortime are probably the best if you want to start on your own while waiting. Get down on the floor at his level and follow his lead. If he has light or other sensory issues try to address them so he is really comfortable. If he isn't talking yet, use really simple 1-2 words to label and narrate his and your play.

ABA will work on eye contact, but at first I wouldn't stress it. He doesn't have to look you in the eye to know you are there and learning. I often find out my son knew things I said and did but wasn't looking at me. Once he finally starting talking at 4, my belief that he knew hundreds of words but just wasn't saying them was confirmed. If it makes him more comfortable to not make eye contact, then don't make it part of play.

Like everyone said, figure out what he likes and use that. It might not be a what you or I would consider a "normal toy" and that is fine. Most kids love boxes more that the fancy toy that came out it and that is fine, so why isn't a lid or old CD case or whatever it is that he likes. If you aren't sure introduce a small number of stimulating items and see where he gravitates. My little guy(4yr) loves escalators/elevators so I hunted down a weeble wobble toy that had an escalator and used that to help with getting him to say up and down and learn turn taking. If you find the things he likes it will make your work sooooo much easier, it will also help you make the ABA folks more effective. ABA done right is fun and engaging for the child, but if it is intensive like is often is for young children you have to have the right motivators. ABA is very repetitive and they need something really good to work for.

Here are two great sites that helped me with educating myself about autism and the various therapies.
http://www.interactingwithautism.com/
http://www.autisminternetmodules.org/

If he likes light, take a flashlight and click it on and off for him. Then bring it next to your face and do it. Then hold it in front of your face at eye level and do it. Then try to catch his eye, however briefly before you do it again. Keep requiring that he at least make fleeting eye contact before you continue the game. You may have to move your head to put your eyes in his path at first. Say hi, or something nice with a big smile when your eyes connect, then flick the flashlight again. The point is for him to make the connection that you are creating the action that he wants, and that he has to connect with you as a person before he can get it. This approach resembles Floortime, a therapy that I really like and have found to be effective.

I did this with my son who likes to spin his toys. Over a period of a few weeks, his eye contact improved dramatically, and with a few more weeks, his eye contact actually started to become meaningful. He was diagnosed at 18 months, so very close to the age of your son. Good luck!,,

I'm just going to echo all the great things that have already been said about Floortime and connecting with your son by following his lead and learning about what makes him tick. My boy's thing was letters and numbers from an early age and it was easy to find different ways to connect with this. He also liked (still does) to play/stim with strings, ribbons etc. and we made up different games to do with him using these things (hide it, wiggle it together, lay them in patterns, make shapes- so many ways to play with them and engage him).

The best thing we did for my boy even before we started having suspicions about ASD around 18 mos was just to connect with him and make sure our relationship was strong, build his trust in us and encourage his interests and abilities even at that young age. This meant going against a lot of mainstream parenting advice ( like sleep training at a young and other harsh behaviour intervention) and even some advice from doctors and therapists.

You are many steps ahead already by finding out at such a young age and by asking about stuff here!

The only thing I can add to the great advice is to keep dragging him to the park. Don't MAKE him play with the other kids (that's not the point). Just KEEP GOING (at least, if he gets anything at all out of it-- if there is anything about it he likes). Do whatever he does there, even if it's staring at the patterns light makes through the leaves. Hey-- if nothing else, you're outside in the sun and air.

I used to walk around looking at flowers and collecting sticks and staring at the undersides of park benches (and, yes, sunlight through leaves) and making piles of rocks and feeding ducks, and would not under any circumstances use the park equipment if there were any other kids there. I would wait, and wait, and wait-- for as long as Grandma would stay at the park, if necessary-- for my chance to use the equipment ALONE. Grandma got good at going early, or late, or just accepting that I was not going to play until the equipment was empty.

It still got me out, and using the equipment alone was good for motor skills (and for at least interacting with Grandma). And I did WATCH the other kids, if only intermittently and surreptitiously. Eventually (I think I was maybe about 4-ish) it got to where I would use the equipment with other kids, as long as we weren't on the same PIECE of equipment and didn't have to play WITH each other (unless I knew them well). Then it got to where I would sometimes try interacting, on a limited basis, with ONE strange child (six or seven, maybe?? I know I was in first grade the first time I ever approached a strange child of my own free will-- she was sitting on a swing, with her arm in a sling, crying because other kids were calling her names, and we sat there saying "Friend?" back and forth to each other for an entire recess period, and then we were friends for like a year and a half until we got completely separated by tracking (I was academically quick and she was mildly intellectually disabled)-- If that sounds, like, SO sad, it turns out that we both live near Pittsburgh now, and she tracked me down and called me up, and now we're reconnecting, and her younger son is just a little bit older than my son, and...).

By middle school I would attempt to join a group (usually fail, but attempt). And now I'm, ugh, a gregarious socially awkward person.

You may want to look into Son Rise, too. I believe that it is almost identical to Floor Time. But I prefer Son Rise because Floor Time assumes that the child has an interest in the world around him (please correct me if I am wrong about this assumption). DS has no interest in anything at all. Through ABA, he has learned to engage with the items presented to him but there is ZERO intrinsic motivation to play or work with these objects. Left to his own devices, he would just grab them and stim on them. Son Rise asks that you join in the stimming with him in an attempt to get into his world to draw him into ours.

We have play time and tub time. During play time, we just "hang out" with each other. I imitate everything he does and he has just begun to actually stop and watch me act like him.

During tub time, hubby gets into the bathtub with him and they just soak together, splash water together and just interact with each other - we chose the bath tub because he loves the water and because it is a small space that it will help him eventually learn to tolerate another human being in such close proximity. I know a Mom who has a camping tent that she takes her son into and they just lay there and "hang out". The idea is to help the child learn to bond with other people. This is not "learning time" but "bonding time".

At very very close to 5, my son still does not approach peers or even appear to have any interest in them. But then he is also developmentally very young (around 2-and-a-1/2) and I am in no rush. If he learns to bond with adults and starts to enjoy "company", then that will be a huge start. ABA can then teach him to read, write, learn to play with toys - but DTT cannot and will not help him learn to socialize and enjoy other human beings.

This is JMHO. Good luck !

Focus on what he's spontaneously interested in, and get him interacting with it and with you. You say he likes looking at lights? Maybe get a lamp with a switch that's easy for a toddler to turn on/off, get him staring at it, then turn it off. Wait for him to react, then turn it back on. Gradually wait longer until he either starts turning it on himself or making a clear effort to ask you to turn it on.

Then, if he's been turning it on himself, try a lamp that he won't be able to turn on, to see if you can elicit communicative behavior.

The whole time, monitor his frustration level - let him get a bit frustrated, but not too frustrated. That means he's pushing himself.