Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone,
I have a beautiful one year old I am really concerned about, in particular with his lack of imitation, babbling and excitement.
I get lulled into thinking he's ok because he is very capable physically, he is very dextrous, patient and determined. He loves toys, he just doesn't want to share the game with me. He doesn't ever show excitement that isn't about strong physical stimulation, or about recognising a familiar pattern. He does have good eye contact but the only time I feel he's 'there' behind his eyes is when I'm singing a song he recognises and the second I stop it switches off. He does make sounds but to express his state, he doesn't copy any sounds or gestures and I am terrified he won't ever learn to talk.
Worst of all I find it terribly hard work being with him because there's no back and forth which makes me feel I may as well not be there and I find it desperately hard not to just withdraw. I crowbar myself into his games, which he tolerates but does not exactly share, or I leave him to it. If I leave the room, he probably will too but not seemingly to find me, just to move on to another thing he likes to do - climb stairs, open the washer door andbite the mouldy part (sigh...)
I know any suggestion that vaccines are a cause will incense a lot of people who feel this is blaming. But this is not about you, it is my own observation of my own child and there was a definite change. This was not even the MMR, which he's not had as he's not quite one, but after his 4 month boosters, which we gave him at 6 months because he'd been ill. After the booster he stopped sleeping through the night, which he had from 4.5months. He also stopped babbling, although he had been a very chatty baby and people had commented on how like his mother he was. Although he had copied me poking out my tongue at only a few days old, he stopped imitating us completely.
Watching videos of him at 4-5 months is heartbreaking. He is 'chatting' all the time, waving his hands with excitement. It feels like he's turned from a typical, chatty baby into a busy, unnaturally calm robot. My heart is breaking. I don't want to wait and see, I need to know what this means. I need to know if there is anything I can do to bring him into the world of sociability.
Please let me know if any of this seems familiar and if it does, what is the best way to support him, in particular with learning to talk. Thank you.
Agnoised mummy,
I'm really sorry to hear you're having these fears. I haven't visited this site in over a year as I've been extremely busy with my own life which revolves around my 11 year old daughter (neuroytypical) and 15 year old son (ASC).
I'll say hi to Scorpion and Hope who I see have contributed to this discussion. I have studied various papers on vaccinations and theories of autism over the 11 years since my own son was diagnosed. You have to be strong against the backlash you will receive from people who tell you the world is such a way.
FACT 1 - Over 95% of research into whether vaccinations cause autism has been undertaken by pharmaceuticals companies themselves. They are under no obligation whatsoever to provide information on negative aspects of their findings.
FACT 2 - No research has ever been undertaken listing the accumulative result of the whole vaccination program. If vaccines have proved to be 'safe', they have been tested in isolation to one another.
FACT 3 - If someone receives a vaccination, who was otherwise healthy when they received the vaccination and ends up dead less than 48 hours later (other than being hit by a bus or similar), then in my own mind the circumstantial evidence points to the vaccine as being the cause of death. It doesn't matter whether the same vaccine given to 100,000 other people didn't cause death, in this individual it caused death. You won't however find any medical practitioner coming out directly and saying that....not because they don't believe it, but simply because they would be professionally crucified.
If anyone responds to my posting please don't bother saying my FACTS are incorrect. I have studied the papers and irrespective of what you've been told, or read or come to the conclusion about, you will not change my mind about these things. When I say FACTS by the way, I mean them to be FACTS as I want to believe them as we all construct our world based on belief systems. Angelina Jolie has just had a double masectomy because she believes she has a gene make-up that will give her cancer. I've no idea if she follows a healthy diet of brocolli, turmeric, ginger, garlic and other anti-cancer type foods, but she is of the belief that no matter what other lifestyle changes she could make, a double masectomy was her best option in avoiding cancer. I wonder if she side-steps the scanner machines when she's globe-trotting around the world, or if she has routine mammograms.....you see, I believe you're much more likely to develop *** cancer if you're *** are subjected even to the tiniest of exposure if you're already inclined that way.....much like the vaccination program.
FACT 4 - Spring onions repeat on me whenever I eat them, sometimes for days on end. They don't affect 99.9% of the population in the same way, so spring onions cannot possibly cause me the gastronomical distress....it must all be in my mind.
FACT 5 - My sister (53) has been severly allergic to eggs ever since I've known her. She only has to touch something that has egg in it to come out in a rash and feel unwell. She now carries a solution around with her in case of anaphylaxis. Is it so unthinkable that a subset of the population has difficulty in dealing with all the different ingredients in a vaccine?
FACT 6 - The whole vaccine program would fall down tomorrow if the population were given true figures over reactions to vaccines. Even if a figure was given that said MMR can cause a condition similar to autism in 1 in 100,000 (a very conservertive number), people would stop accepting the vaccine. Any rational thinking person given what I've just said about spring onion, eggs, disease in general (why do some people develop something and others don't.....look up figures of Swine Flu for example). This is the crux of the matter. For the vaccination program to keep going, health professionals have to carry on with the lie that vaccines are safe in all the population. If they don't?.....well ask Andrew Wakefield what happens.
If my son Thomas was newly born tomorrow, knowing what I know now, he wouldn't receive any vaccinations. As older parents at the time, we were told that there was a chance of 1 in 2000 that he would be born with Down's Syndrome (because of my wife's age, 37 at the time). If we had an amniocentesis test we could find out if the embryo was Down's but with a risk that the baby could be damaged. We opted not to have the test. With my daughter born 4 years later, the risk was now 1 in 100. We once again played the numbers game and it turned out that she didn't have Down's. We were prepared to risk Down's at a chance of 1 in 100 because without it there wouldn't have been life. I'm pretty sure other people wouldn't risk having a vaccine that purportedly stopped the risk of say measles, if the risk was autism even if the rate was 1 in 10,000.
OK.....I now need to stop delivering stuff about vaccines....there are some great websites out there where you can find this stuff out.
As for your son, stop beating yourself up over whether he has autism or not. Get clued up over different forms of communicating with him other than speech (look up speech and language therapies online or get in touch with your local education / health authority. As a musician myself, keep singing to your child.......any of the nursery rhymes that you can pause over......'One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow....might be a good one'. We went on an NAS initiative when my son was diagnosed at 4 and still non-verbal called 'Early Bird Training' . I still have the materials and will post them to you if you want them.
Do you have other children? I think my experience talking with other parents is that if the ASC child is a second or third child, their developmental delay is spotted more quickly than a first child because of the parents' prior experience with a 'neurotypical' child.
On a positive note, my son is one of the most loving, most caring individuals I know. He won't lie, cheat, manipulate, scheme or do any of the other horrible things that other people may do. I'll try to upload some videos of him to give you hope.
Good luck,
Al