I need advice following a casual comment from my toddler's nursery...

One KSW making a comment about a 2.5 year old, is nothing to be alarmed about.

Just wait and see how he develops.

Your son sounds much more normal than me at that age.  

Your point being? I mentioned speech in my original post and latterly explained why I didn’t list language comprehension, whilst consistently indicating that my list of traits was not a comprehensive one...

I understand all of that, but it’s not relevant to this thread. If you wish to discuss this topic then why not start a new thread regarding it?

There are two posts today related to understanding speech and Language at ages of 2.5 and 3 years.

If perhaps an autistic person who cannot comprehend language, as you or I Understand it.

An autistic person such as my son, Not being able to comprehend any language other than the most basic "Name would you like  xyz",  then having to say "Yes - No" so as to give an option of the required answer you seek.

Having got an answer then having to repeat part or all of the question, only this time in reverse, as "No - Yes" to check if the answer you are getting is the same and not just echolalia or echopraxia speech. This will not be understood by most of the population.

If such an autistic person Is believed or blamed for a serious event they may end up in the Court system as any other individual. They will be presumed to be able to understand the Complex matters that ensues. 

I know of one serious case where, i believe another did the crime and blamed the autistic person  who gave answers to please a trusted questioner, that being the only evidence against him, The Judge believed he could comprehend all the complex matters put to him . I believe he is still in prison for the Insane for life. A Prosecuting Barrister is trained to attempt to make the brightest people say things that incriminate themselves.

If you cannot comprehend complex language, you stand no chance. 

If you have had to fill in the PIP form, all the questions there, are designed that only a lawyer could answer them first time round,.

After filling in my son's PIP form and sending it off and then re-studying the Questions and answers again I realised I had done my son a disservice by wrongly filling in the form , So I had to send ammendments explaining my original errors. I spent a couple of Months on that form, A social worker with only limited time, just ticking boxes, will not have served their clients best interest.   

As clearly described, I listed ‘some’ things to look out for.

At 2.5 years old I would consider this a difficult symptom to spot unless severe (which it isn’t for every autistic individual), so I didn’t list it. Make sense?

I’m not sure where your reference of court comes in - this thread is about a 2.5 year old child...

You have missed out Language Comprehension. This is very important should an autistic person with little understanding of Language comprehension, the understanding on spoken or written language. Have to go to Court . The Magistrate or Judge will assume the person can understand everything happening. 

As regarding to me coming to the NAS. My Wife has been this Family's Life member for 30+ years, we dont need to have more than one member to sell the NAS Xmas Cards.

I landed on this website about two weeks ago for obvious reasons. and in Passing unlike your self with your 7000+ points. who has obviously never had to cope with a severely autistic person such as my son, you seem to find my descriptions as to his autistic behavoirs, my reference of autism, threating. 

A couple of times, I have given my honest unbiased responses to a query whether from male or female in plain english, One I recall being told a child was obsessed with, and was touching other peoples eyes.

My immediate recall of a happening about 70 years ago, of which I withold details, you either know, or you don't. It was well reported in the Press then and has occasionallly been reported subsequently several times even relatively recently. 

My my advice was simple and in effect was to not draw attention to the eye problem, by ignoring it, Don't draw atention to it, Protect your eyes, and as a safety precaution, Don't have marbles recalling the well publicised case from 70 years ago, and often referred to in the Press.

Yes my son refused to suckle at birth, this I later found out indicated something drasitc was wrong. He will even today elect to "No Eat just drinks" generally about once a week. He certainly does not starve, h He will eventually eats and enjoys food prepared for him. 

Who are you to say that my son's autistic behavoirs with food and vomiting, this comes and goes as a behavoir, that a reason could be found\after 35years . He should not be still doing that. Does his autistic behavoir upset you. This is one of his many autistic behavoirs. What are yours? 

You can be assured that my son gets all the Care and understanding he requires. 

Now you have the cheek to require to want to know why Authorities wish to use article 5 of the Human Rights Actto put into State Detention People,  who are in Care, and in My sons Case Whilst he is in the Care of his Family, by the Use of a Deprevation of Liberty Order, when they die in Care the Coroner will Write "Death Whilst in State Detention." These people have done wrong.

One such Council has tried to do this in bulk One piece of Paper with multiple names on it. I suggest you Google "Re X" .They do this because they can and to protect themselves. It may also be to try and Push the Care Bill from their Budget on to the NHS, or the Home office Budget.

As regards my son , My Local Authority write That the Care he gets here in his home is faultless.

However I believe Article 8 of the Human Rights Act is superior to Artlcle 5 and I would like to get help from the NAS for a barrister to establish this in the interest of Justice for the My son and others likewise, being cared for at home.

I dont thank you for your well wishesas it is a sarcastic comment and relates to the care my son gets at home.

I have previously already reported your earlier postings as threatening..

This is not for your benefit , but others reading it.. 

NAS38972 said:

I was describing some very obvious bizzare autistic behaviours.

But you didn’t describe them as such in your original post, and further why use the word ‘bizarre’ when it could cause offence to everyone here who experiences such behaviours?

The same with using the word ‘handicapped’ - it is very outdated and offensive to people who are autistic or have another condition and don’t see themselves as less but rather different.

Then we get to your explanation of ‘normal’ - as we are all different, what is truly normal? You seem to be arguing that because less people are neurodiverse than neurotypical, then neurotypical is normal. But in reality everything lies on a normal distribution curve, so whilst the neurotypicals are in the middle (currently at least), and neurodiverse would lie at one of the ends, we are if fact all a variant of normal! Further, it is actually essential to have such variations in the population in order to ensure the survival of mankind - if we all had the same genetics and therefore were the same we would never advance and could easily be wiped out with one disease.

You explain your earlier points about the child being in nursery here, and they are much more tempered - why didn’t you put this in your original comment instead of being so blunt? If you explained your points you may find that people are less offended.

None of us find the description of your son’s behaviours as abusive or threatening if you describe them as such, but what we don’t appreciate is you detailing them as the categorical behaviours of an autistic child, and inferring that if children don’t show these behaviours they are not autistic. This is simply untrue, misleading and offensive.

You are free to talk about your son and your experiences, but remember that they are not everyone’s experiences, and please try to avoid using offensive terms when doing so.

I think your reply is to me!

You come here and only seem to reply to mothers who want answers about autism and how it effects there child, you start off by saying you are no expert, but then you make actually statements, you sound like only you know what an autistic child will present as or be like as they grow older.

 Your son is an individual, please stop telling all the mothers and fathers on here how their child will be, one of your responses to another mother was, “ don’t ever mention eyes, don’t even allow them to play with marbles, don’t look into the eyes, wear dark glasses. All utter nonesense and doesn’t help in any way what so ever.

 You keep telling everyone your son refused to eat and still does and often vomits., I would have thought after thirty odd years a reason for this would have been found and help given, if indeed you have bothered to even tell the medical people he does this, he obviousely needs more help than you have given him, he should not still be doing that. Please get him the help and understanding he so desperately needs, 

Just why have the authorities decided to get a “ deprivation of Liberty order” on your son, are they concerned he is not safe we’re he is, that isn’t something they tend to do without very good reason. 

You frighten mothers, you think all children will be like your boy, 

NAS has asked you to read up about autism, they have warned you to moderate what you say. 

You are not helping anyone . 

I wish you well but I wish your son more help and hopefully a chance to live a life where he will be more understood.

I was describing some very obvious bizzare autistic behaviours.That can be seen. The hand waving, fingers in the ears and constant shouting out, or even being mute, These are seen at every Handicapped swimming session by some of the Handicapped Children that attend at our local Council run Lesiure centre. I expect it is the same throughout the Country. I do not know what observable behaviours others who are on the autistic spectrum visibly present with that may be apparent to be seen in a 2.5 year old child. other than not wanting to interact and having no ability to understand how others perceive a situation.   As regarding to using the word Normal, This normally means to me as being statistically more than average. For instance I am assuming that today 1 in 40 are believed to be on the autiistic spectrum, that is not normality, if you even double , tripple and allow up to ten times for many other such devastating handicaps so that 10 in 40 are not normality then 30 out of 40 will represent the normality of the population I refered to in my earlier post you found offensive. 

As regards any Child being in a nursery at 2.5 years In todays world. This is a major very expensive nececcessity to help Parents to be able to undertake paid employment,, as well as being a benefit to come into.contact with other people than Mum and/or Dad. 

I had to presume that the Child's KSW is a paid worker at the Nursery, and the Child had a personality that conficted with a peaceful employment, ie the Lad may well have been agressive, or noisey,  these can be for "Normal" reasons. As the Father Tim had not seen anything untoward before. I gave the simplist answer I could think of; Stress in a new situation. and besides 2.5years old will be far too young for any expert to want to make a diagnosis of autism.

I don't know why you continually find the description of my son's autistic behavior's who specialist consultant Psychiatrist  descibes his condition as : Severe Learning Disabilities and Autistic Spectrum Disorder. abusive and threatening. I have been fighting  his Corner for his lifetime. My son was diagnosed in 1986 at 3.5 years as being autistic,

I can assure you that:  This was a relief! At last we had a diagnosis we believed we could at last start to climb out of the very deep hole we were in, without realising we were in one, trying to cope with his Handicap. We as a family have 5 other Children who are not on the autistric spectrum. 

After a series of Tribunals culminating in 1991 with a Medical Appeals Tribunal, Where I was able to establish, that for him and an autisic behavioral point of view Being autistic was a physical disorder required the Maximum Disability Benefit  and required a Mobility allowance, up until then being autistic did not get Mobility allowance for which you have to have a Physical disability. 

The Government thereafter gave autistic people with my son behaviours a Lower value disability benefit and the Mobility allowance. disability Mobility allowance without the Years of fighting I had to endure.all the way up to a M.A.T. 

Today this has changed with P.I.P.  and ESA, After some 3 months of This procedure and two Box files full I got a PiP score of 47 points including 12 Points for the Mobility part of it. There wass scope to claim more points but it being pointess as 24 is the Maximum needed for Maximum benefit.

I will be interested in how other Autistic Spectrum Disorder suffers did with their PIP scores.

I have another fight on now with the Powers that be. My Council wants to get a Deprivation of Liberty Order against my son, suddenly withdrawing his funding after having failed to pay for his Carers for over now 3.5 Years saving themselves something like 100k. The DOL. will mean he is in State Detention whilst being cared for at home by his Unpaid Family Carers of Last Resort. I will need help with This one. 

Thanks for your advice everyone. Much appreciated 

Thank you. You're right, I've been wondering what qualified them to make the comments too. I don't want to ignore something important but similarly don't want to jump to conclusions. I'll arrange a meeting with nursery and check out those books.

I would want to know what qualifications the nursery key worker has to make any comments like that about autism. It may be that his understanding of autism is limited to stereotypical misinformation about the condition and a throw away comment like that would at the least be unhelpful and at the most would be unprofessional.  I would have thought that if there were concerns about your son that led the staff to consider that he might possibly have an autistic spectrum condition, then this should be discussed with you at a proper meeting with whoever holds the role of SENCo at the setting. From the information in your post it is impossible to know whether your son might be autistic, the traits and presentation are just so varied and what you describe could very well be typical 2 year old behaviour. Has your son had a 2 yr check from the health visitor? Were any concerns highlighted there? I would recommend that you ask who the SENCo is at the nursery and ask for a meeting. In terms of supporting your child, I would suggest reading books like Raising Your Spirited Child, The Highly Sensitive Child and The Explosive Child. They all talk about temperaments and give strategies for emotional responses. 

Thank you that's useful context 

Hi Tim,

Welcome!x

Much love <3

I agree with you completely ) ( - it is rather an offensive post all in all, and I simply don’t understand why someone would be so presumptive.

“Not Normal ?”

I take offence at the use of your word and how you use it.

”sounds to me he is a child, (of a parent who has to leave him with others to go to work)”.

Why on earth would you presume such a thing?

there is no mention of him being left with others, therefore yet again your expert knowledge of all things to do with all autistic children is wrong. Your son is one individual, he is not at the age of thirty a representation of how a young child would present now.

Emotional disregulation is certainly a part of autism, and some children with autism do have an advanced vocabulary for their age, but realistically that is not nearly enough to say for definite and if he is getting along well enough otherwise, at 2.5 I wouldn’t do too much about it other than be aware that it may become something that is relevant later (e.g. if difficulties become more obvious) and keep an eye out for traits. 

Everyone with autism is unique, so their presentation will be unique, but some things to look out for in a young child could be:

1) Sensory issues - being over or under sensitive to light, sound, smell, touch, pain etc. This could manifest as being a ‘fussy’ eater, not noticing injuries, disliking/liking noisy activities, favouring certain blankets/clothes etc.

2) Not making eye contact, or making fleeting eye contact, particularly with unfamiliar people.

3) Being in his own world - playing alone or with others but not actively engaging with them. Sometimes as they they do things their own way or ‘play to their own tune’.

4) Stimming behaviours - rocking, hand flapping, clapping, tapping, playing with things in hand, chewing etc. These are generally self-comforting behaviours and may be very noticeable or more subtle.

5) Becoming overly upset easily, particularly due to minor unexpected changes.

6) Speech problems, which could be mild or more significant. Alternatively, speech may be fine.

7) Saying the opposite of what is meant or repeating questions/phrases back.

If you do start to notice more traits and it begins to have a significant affect on your son, then at some point it may become helpful to seek a diagnosis, but whilst he is happy and doing well I wouldn’t personally look at that. 

NAS38972 said:

Unless he flickers his hands in front of his eyes, or just abnormally wave his hands, insist on only the same certain foods, or perhaps screaming or vomiting results, As the father of an autistic son, who had no verbal communication at all at 3.5, and did not relate to other siblings, parents, or others.

This may well have been your son’s presentation, but it is certainly not the only way that a young child with autism may present, so please don’t imply that it is (as it can cause confusion for those unfamiliar with the condition).