Hi all,
I am back again. 5 years ago my daughter had a few signs of autism but was not diagnosed. She had speech training for 11 months and behavior therapy for 4 months. She is now almost 7, doing very well in GATE class but shy and slightly weak in social interactions. Although sometimes she is inappropriate in some social interactions, I have no more concern with my daughter.
Currently my 2 year [25 month] old son has speech delay and has a few concerning signs such as hand flapping and spinning when excited but only for around 10 to 20 seconds, walking on toes, and poor eye contact. He also rubs himself against pillows or my leg. He is extremely active and not afraid of running away from us when we go outside. He is also poor at reading emotion. When I am mad, sometimes he thinks it's funny. He only knows when I am really mad and yell at him then he feels sad and tears come down. Initial screening by Regional Center in California gives him a M-CHART-R score of 4. The case worker told me that they will schedule professional evaluation for him soon. Currently he only says about 10 single words. No two word sentences. Good signs are that he is pointing at objects he wants and at interesting things like airplane in the sky, birds flying. He also show off his toys or look for approval when he plays his toy piano or wants us to look at his crayon scribble on paper, love to play with people and love to hug. He always run to hug and kiss me and his sister when we come home. However, sometimes he is unable to express he needs and be aggressive with his 6 year old sister. He waves and says "hi" to strangers when we walk in the neighborhood. He pretends to cook and feed us or stuffed animals. He uses objects and pretends to talk like using a phone. He loves Peekaboo game when he was little and love hide and seek game. He is also very good at imitating. I tried to do magic tricks and he would copy it by trying to hide objects by sleight of hands and show empty hands and laugh. When his sister dances, he also imitate the dancing. I think he has more concerning signs compared to my daughter. I hope that he will end up similar to his sister or I would be happy if he is only slightly worst. My wife is extremely sad and nervous right now.
After my son was evaluated by the case worker I kept thinking why is this keeps happening to our kids and it must have been genetic. I went online and took the Autism Spectrum Quotient Test a few times and I scored between 29 and 32 and initially I was really surprised. I would describe myself as an average engineer who tend to be quiet but really good at my job. I am very stable and have been with the same company for 20 years. I am married with 3 children age 6, 2 and 1 month old. Looking back I can see a few issues with my social life. I have friends but really no close friends. I was very shy but mostly overcame it with by attending Toastmasters speech club for more than a year. I have 3 brothers and 2 younger brothers are even less social than me. One is a very successful engineer and the other is a recluse spending most of his time outside of work playing video games. My older brother is an extrovert with many friends. I am comfortable with who I am. I have some concerns that my kids will be worse than me especially my son. I am OK with how my daughter is doing. I am actively working with my daughters to improve her social skills. We read books on making friends and keeping friends and what are the appropriate responses in various situations. She is really enthusiastic about it and like me she believes that we can be better at anything by learning and practicing. During our reading of these social skill training books, I discovered that there are things that I have done wrong all my life.
Thank you for reading,
09 May 2019, 12:42 pm
