Parents having thought something was up, others not...

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I just found out, my parents actually did a lot when I was young of trying to get me help, and it just never happened. They thought that something was abnormal about me. I never knew it then.

However, while they kept trying to get me help others kept not taking them seriously, so I didn't get anything.

Good to know that they'd identified it. Frustrating that others didn't take it seriously. Wish I knew more. Wonder what would have been different if someone took it seriously the first time they tried to bring it up. Wonder how old I was then.

Anyone else who's parents knew something was abnormal, but not what it was, because they didn't identify that it was autism, and they couldn't get help because nobody would take them seriously?

Well at school and home everyone knew there was something wrong with me but getting an exact diagnosis was difficult....so the help wasn't really specific enough. They noticed right away in school actually - in preschool the teachers told my mom that I was "off in my own little world all the time" and they were really concerned about me" then in Kindergarten they set up an appointment with a neurologist for me , because of "unusual behaviour" aka stimming, being in my own little world, and motor skills problems they observed -not sure what those were. This was actually only after having been in kindergarten for a week. My mom asked the neurologist if I was autistic and he said no because I talked and didn't have a speech delay (this was before Asperger's was a diagnosis and the doctor didn't specialize in autism -he specialized in motor skill problems ). My mom got an assessment report saying detailing my motor skill levels and I was way below average for most things (fine and gross) so I got an OT and she helped me learn to hold a pencil and write which I had trouble with and tried to help me with other things. At 7 I was diagnosed with an LD and the psychologist recommended to my mom that she put me in a social skills class/group which she did.....I was also put in resource(special ed) for one period a day to work on math which I had trouble with. I kept being assessed again and again. At 13 I was diagnosed with ADD , was put on Ritalin , had a bad reaction and was taken off it. Then at 14 I was diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder. Even though I did have more help then some there were some problems I had , like I would run out of the lunch room when led in there when I was in primary school because it was too noisy and crowded and just wander off. If people had known I was autistic at that age it would have been good because then they would understand those kind of things and could accommodate them ....theoretically anyway..............

Yeah, my folks were crusaders in terms of trying to get me diagnosed properly so I got appropriate help. This was also before AS was recognised so, alas, the phycologist could not find a suitable diagnosis and terms like dyslexia, clumsy child syndrome and ADHD got banded about but my parents knew none of those explained the full picture they saw in my behaviours.

They were actually told by some ignorant fools that I acted the way I did because they didnt smack me enough - yeah, right. Since becoming an adult my mother has been sort of hinting that a lot of these things bore similarities to spectrum behaviour which, eventually at 30, led to my moment of realisation causing my eyes to be fully opened for the first time to how much of who I am is because of AS one way or another.

The opposite for me. Others thought that I was abnormal and asked my family members, and my family members thought that I was normal and other children who didn't act like me were abnormal. I have a verry merry berry BAP/ASD family.

I was born early and was in and out of hospital a lot for a while before I can remember. My parents also thought something was up with me but the doctors of the mid-80s chalked it up to my being born early with some C.P. on the side and maybe a brain injury(was supposed but 27 years and a MRI later there's no proof to suggest there was a brain injury and certainly not one to any great degree). I couldn't sit up without support at a year old, but I had also just gotten back from a stay at the hospital before that and at that time I always regressed after being in the hospital and no one marked down milestones or remembers when I started talking since they were too busy with my medical stuff.

I asked my mother is they'd ever tired to get a diagnosis when I was little and she said they did talk to my doctors but they all said I was developmentally delayed and that was normal for kids that had been born early.

(rest of post moved to personal blog, because it was long and got off topic. Link it there in case anyone wants to read me my rambling).

I kept getting ear infections and this one nurse kept brushing it off telling her to ignore it and it will go away. Mom fought with other doctors for a referral and they wouldn't do it so she had to do it herself. When I was a toddler, no one wanted to teach me communication until I got to kindergarten so my mother found a school up in Washington that would teach me so we moved up there after they bought a lot of there and built a house and moved in. Over the years my parents fought getting me help and I had all these labels on me by the time I was in 5th grade but none of them seemed to fit. Mom kept trying to figure out what I had and it wasn't Asperger's because one of my doctor's said I didn't have it so it was back to square one again what I had. Then it was finally brought up from two different people, my speech therapist and my shrink and I was finally brought to an autism specialist my mother was referred to by my shrink and I got diagnosed with it. Then things got better after that.

Others not. I think some parents are in denial and see admitting there is something wrong with their kid makes them flawed somehow so they just deny it or blame it on the kid. School said I was a bad kid so it was tough love for me.

BTW parents of ASD kids, be careful with tough love, you might not like the results.

Since the day my daughter was born, I realised she was somewhat different to her peers, but wasn't sure what it might be. She went to nursery and, although it was noted that she had concentration difficulties, the workers didn't seem concerned about her. For 5 years, my husband and I tried to figure her out and never asked for any support or guidance from anyone. It was only when she went to school that it suddenly dawned on me that she might have an ASD. Initially, the teachers disagreed with my suspicions, but a few months later they agreed. Two years down the line, she got a diagnosis of Aspergers.

But, if I say to anyone else about her diagnosis, they are quite astounded. I speak with a Mum at my daughter's swimming class, who works in early years. She says that she can't see that she's any different from any other kids. We happened to be talking about this on Tuesday. Meanwhile, whilst all the other kids are standing under the showers, my giant 6yr old daughter's dancing around the shower area, covered in soap suds and gently smacking her head to release some bubbles, whilst laughing and singing. She looked adorable and there were a few comments about her being sweet and happy, which she is, and I wouldn't stop her doing this. But, I would have thought she stood out a mile (she does to me). I think other people are in denial.

Although I'm the one who initially spotted the ASD, this does not mean that I felt there was something abnormal about her, just that she was different from average. I wanted her to be assessed so that she wouldn't be misunderstood and develop low self esteem, as a result. Having been there myself, I didn't want this for her. She has been diagnosed at a very young age, for a very high functioning girl, with non-stereotypical behaviour. Most girls like her would not get a diagnosis until much later, if at all. I see this as a positive and I hope she doesn't hate me for it, when she's older.