what was you like as a small child?

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I didn't speak until I was at least 8 (started babbling at 7) .
Never had meltdowns or tantrums, temper tantrums began when I hit puberty.
Despite being a silent child with no meltdowns for parents to deal with, I had to be watched all the time because literally had no sense of danger. For example if I was on a boat I could easily let myself fall over the edge and into the water so parents had to watch me all the time.

I wasn't officialy diagnosed with autism because it was the 70s when I was small and labels and things weren't thought about so much. But adults did suspect autism, and some suspected mental retardation because I was missing some criteria autism traits. I didnt have a special interests about anything, and I didnt seem to react at all at loud noises although now I dislike some loud noises, and I had a wide imagination, no meltdowns (til I got older) and did like to play with toys with other children, even though I was mute. I was always mentored at school so the other children knew me as me, and then I went to special school when I was 11-15.

What was you like as a small child?

I was a hyper sensitive child, from emotions to senses and beyond.
I still have very strong emotions, while everyone else gets normal strength emotions.
I am still hyper sensitive to everything, though I have strong enough self control to hide it.



With that said I was the good kid, while my other NT sibling caused huge amounts of trouble even with the law at times (on my mom's side).
My mother is severe bipolar and still regularly goes crazy on most days.
My first step father was into drugs and alcohol and always being a horrible individual.

Due to this situation, I didn't have time or the energy to act like a normal kid.
Also due to this, it made school much worse for me, since I was exhausted from my home life.

Though my dad has never really had any interest in me, because he didn't want to be parent when I came along.
He treats his other kids better (they are teens still), in part due to my step-mom's pushing it.

He always claimed he did more for me because of all the child support he paid my mother (not that I saw much of it).

So yeah I had to grow up fast in a bad environment which is still rippling through my life (I didn't get the help I needed as kid).

I was diagnose severely autistic at age 2. Was nonverbal until about 8. Have always had sensory meltdowns. Even now I have to be watched outdoors to make sure I don't walk into traffic. When I was little I guess I was pretty much textbook severe autistic. But am told I was usually pretty well behaved. Easy going and cooperative for an autistic kid, just as long as nothing triggered me. These days I'm in the moderate range.

Milestones reached at normal speed. I was very active, but did not get along with other kids, (or pedagogues).
We did play, but we misunderstood each other and I was, to say the least, not flexible!
I was absolutely certain, that I knew how everything was- and I was probably an intolerable "know-it-all" to some people. Completely lacking cautiousness towards strange people, I just marched up to them and began to talk.
Everything was taken apart. Seing how it worked was more interesting than playing with it. I liked animals and plants better than things.
I hated hugs and deep look in the eyes. My parents caught me now and then to hug and kiss me, because they thought I tended to "disappear". I was furious.
I was scared of loud sounds and went in shock when subjected, - and had eternal trouble sleeping.
I don´t think, that I ever had a meltdown, but I was very temperamental. My parents called me the angriest kid north of the alps.

My mother told me that I spoke and walked early, and was reading street signs by age 3. I of course remember none of this.

I had figured out that Santa = my parents by age 7. That I remember. And how tempted I was to spoil it for my younger sister.

I was always tall for my age until I stopped growing at 14. I was gangly, and uncoordinated.

I had a lot of sensory issues, especially clothing fabrics (couldn't stand wool next to my skin), and was especially sensitive to pollen. I got over all of those.

exactly like the kid out of the movie 'neverending story'
sensitive, shy, liked books and video games, bullied.

I had good friends in school though.

I was in a world of my own mostly. I remember playing by myself a lot and being perfectly content, just digging in the sand. I met a good friend and I bonded with her but I didn't have lots of friends. This friend was fun and we'd run around and did things. We didn't talk a lot really. Instead we ran through the neighbourhood and pretended that we were looking for big foot and things like that.

I didn't sleep a full nights rest until I was 4. I had a lot of ear, throat and nose infections too while growing up.

I had a happy childhood while I was at home, and a miserable one at school that I want to forget.

I was pretty much a raging, mad autistic child until I began to speak--at age 5 1/2.

I didn't start speaking until 2 or 3 years old. When I was still in my car seat, sometimes if my mom would play the radio I would scream, because the noise would bother me. (Thankfully it doesn't bother me anymore.) I was a very hyper child, my mom saids I was always on the move. (Which doesn't surprise me.) I was more of a loner in pre-k, I remember doing my own thing instead of playing with all the other kids, At the time I never knew how to interact with them. I was nine years old when I was diagnosed, but my parents didn't tell me until I was fourteen...

I had selective mutism and was cripplingly shy in social situations well through elementary school. I don't know at what age I started speaking. Many memories I have of people asking my mother or teacher "Does he talk?". However, I still did relatively well as a child, and academically I was consistently in the top of my school...I like to believe I was the only kid from my elementary school who was simultaneously in special education and the gifted classes; I won my third grade school spelling bee and yet I had classmates who could barely spell at all. I definitely felt a social disconnect from being so ahead of my peers.

My home life was normal and I preferred to spend more time by myself, reading, writing, drawing or watching movies/TV than playing with friends. My mom attempted to make me play sports for a while, but that didn't take and she graciously supported my own interests (music, film, etc.). I had a very good upbringing to be honest, and I'm thankful for that.

I went to a lot of psychologists for as long as I could remember, but I never knew what their diagnosis was outside of ADHD (I wasn't told until high school that I had AS). I was on Ritalin and Adderall for a time, but eventually phased out of that by middle school.

My spacial awareness was horrendous.

I don't remember. But I do know my parents took me to get my hearing tested because I wouldn't speak until the age of five. (Given my family, I'm surprised I didn't stay mute for even longer.) I apparently got expelled from nursery school for reasons my mum can't quite remember. I didn't display any affection to my mum, let alone anyone else: she has said that she didn't think I liked her very much as a child. I was apparently also 'very stubborn'.

Even at the tender age of 5 or 6, I already had developed a persecution complex. At a family do I went around telling people that "everyone hates me". Probably picked that up from Charlie Brown, but to be fair, I probably also really believed it too. Still do sometimes >.>

I learned to talk and read early. That being said, I had a monotone that was clear. I still do some days.

I was not diagnosed until twenty-eight, and I had only one friend at a time. I cannot remember all my special interests, but I read all the time. I LOVED Dr. Dolittle. Would talk about him endlessly. Also Eleanor Roosevelt.

I was the good child. The one who did not cry or ask for attention. I used to get lost all the time. I did not talk to many people. I just did not know how to have a conversation. I was really smart though. I d id not like getting dressed up or anything that was trendy.

I seemed normal until about 2.5-3 when my parents realized I wasn't talking much if at all. Got checked out, doc said no, huh big mistake. I was very clingy to my older brother and was basically a selective mute and was generally afraid of most people. I made one friend in preschool, but then my fathers job uprooted us and we had to move. I have no memory of kindergarten. After another year we had to move again to our final location and I started first grade not knowing anyone and began as a social outcast, no friendships lasted more than a year, if they could even be called friendships. I was a scrawny kind of malnourished uncoordinated runt, perfect target. My mother began becoming more and more emotionally vacate and just wasn't there and my fathers job kept him at work most days, so no one really knew I was getting brutally bullied. If those moves hadn't happened and created so much instability in my early years I wonder how things may have gone differently.

I was always bored in school, as a child, because I already knew alot of what they were teaching. I had learned how to spell, read, tell time, and do basic math, before I was 5 (the age I was when I entered 1st grade because they didn't have kindergarten, then). My grades weren't all that great because I was always daydreaming, writing plays and poetry, etc. I only paid attention when we were doing something I was interested in, and then when I did really well, my teachers were always shocked----but, I was like: "Well, if you'd give me more things that are challenging, I'd DO better, more often"----I thought so many of my teachers were stupid.

I never did sports, really, cuz my mother wouldn't let me stay after school, cuz she was afraid the boogey-man would get me, on my walk home.

At home, I was always in my own world----my mother, sometimes, would miss something that was said on TV, and ask "What'd they say", and I'd say: "I dunno", and she'd say: "You're sittin' right there, lookin' at the TV----why don't you know what they said?"----I didn't have a answer for that. My aunt thought I was hateful, sometimes----which was a SHOCK to me, because I didn't hate ANYTHING, or anyone. I was always called an old soul----I guess because I wanted to discuss LIFE----I wanted to LEARN----not play with dolls. My mother used to "punish" me by making me read the dictionary, and / or encyclopedias----the joke was on HER, though, cuz I was in HEAVEN!!