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recently diagnosed

lulu-belle

hi all

Just wondered if anyone could explain my sons diagnosis to me in more simple terms the thr professionals?

my son is 5 he was diagnosed with autism in oct last year he also has a speech disorder, he is bright and likes company and they say he has not got a learning disability. Will he grow up like other children? will he ever talk and fully understand? in so many ways he is like a toddler i adore him but the future is so uncertain they just sat me down after the assessment and said he was autistic not sure where to go from here! his school is good as he is in the language unit but the school sen told me to my face his diagnosis is incorrect and he was 'diagnosed by a checklist!' this is obviously upetting for me and untrue where he was diagnosed is a leading centre . help! lol

thanks emma

  • My eldest son (5years) has a speech delay alongside his ASD. At 3 he still had no real words. Thankfully for us he was at the preschool SALT department and I built up some brilliant relationships with the therapists but now his SALT has been transferred into the 'in school' team I don't have a clue what is going on. However on the upside with a hell of a lot of hard work on my part and my son's part he can now communicate. He still has lots to work on but he mixes well with the other children in his class and is very happy and doing well at school.

    All I can suggest is going back to the SALT therapist and asking her/him what they aim to achieve with the SALT. They won't be able to give you a timescale but they can at least tell you what they expect to happen.

    Good luck with it all. It's tough but it's only us parents who really fight our childs corner for them so we have to keep going.

    Emma.

  • This article from the Dyspraxia Foundation may help to explain your son's speech disorder. It begins like this.

    Children with developmental verbal dyspraxia have difficulty in making and co-ordinating the precise movements required for the production of clear speech, and yet there is no evidence of damage to nerves or muscles. They have difficulty in producing individual speech sounds and in sequencing sounds together in words. As a result their speech is often unintelligible even to family members.

    My son had wordfinding problems. These are described along with strategies to help at another useful website, teachingexpertise.com

    Some pupils have difficulty in recalling the right word when they need to use it. They often have to describe the word rather than naming it, eg. 'It's hot. You make tea. You put water in it.' (kettle). This may be caused by difficulties associating an abstract label with a concrete object. The pupil may be able to describe the features of something, but not be able to 'find' the correct word in their memory bank.

  • thanks for your replies is nice knowing others understand.

    he does have a statement and is in a resoursed provision of 7 kids with 4 staff so v.lucky on that count. thev school is good but his autism was only added to his statement after i kicked up a fuss! his speech disorder is a little confusing to me as he knows words but is unable to say them properly he is very hard to understand.

    Just scared really his my ony child and i love him so much i would give everything i have to let him talk.

    i really feel for the parents of children diagnosed late it must be a million times harder to get the support u all need.

    thanks both of u u r v.helpful.

     

  • The school are not qualified to question a diagnosis. Does your son have a statement? If so it should outline the provision to meet both the autism and the language disorder. The school have to follow the statement.

    If the statement is too vaguely worded you can can request a reassessment. If you do not have a statement you should request one.

    My son had a language disorder as a child but no autism DX. He was lucky. He had glue ear - cured with surgery - and an inspired teacher who addressed the language problem itself. He was bright and interested in people as well. So we thought everything was going to be OK until things went pear shaped around ages 9-10 when his lack of social understanding really showed up. He was 12 before we got a DX. 

    If we had had that DX early on we could have avoided so many mistakes and spared him a lot of grief. 

    What does the DX mean? It depends. What is the nature of the language disorder? We are certain now that Mattie's language problem was actually an expression of his autism and the specialist language teacher was addressing those core difficulties in social communication.

    Now he is bright, verbal, employed and reasonably happy with his life. I hope for nothing less for your son.  

  • Hi,

    You sound as confused as i am, my daughter was diagnosed with autism in November. Two weeks before i was told she had no signs of autism, then they gave a diagnoses of autism   If i was you i would go back to were he was diagnosed and let them know what the school think, they are the professionals in autism not the school. This is probably not much help but good luck x