Help please

hi everyone, 

im new on here. I had a meeting with an early help assessment coordinator this week who told me he thinks my son is autistic. I do agree with him. I’m looking at getting a private assessment done. My only concern is that I forgot to mention to him that my son does talk sometimes using a made up language . Is this a trait? Also do children with autism develop turrets at all??? My son says ‘idiot mum , idiot mum’ and ‘poxy idiot’ . Is this early turrets (unsure of spelling sorry) . Any help us gladly appreciated xx 

Parents
  • Welcome,

    I agree with the previous reply that, from what you've said so far, this doesn't sound like Tourette's (it's named after a French doctor, which is why it's such a tricky one to spell!) The tics of Tourette's are uncontrollable by the person doing them, so they can happen at any time, not just when the person is trying to communicate with someone or talking to themself. In the people that I have met with Tourette's, their verbal tics don't sound like part of what they are trying to say. If they happen while the person is speaking, they sound like random interruptions in odd places in the sentence, and often not in the same tone of voice; for example, like; "Hello, [chocolate!] my name [chocolate! chocolate!] is Trog." Some people with autism do have Tourette's as well, but as the previous poster said, it's an independent condition, not part of their autism.

    However, autistic people do often have difficulties with language which can make their style of speech unusual, especially when they're young and working out all of the new skills that it needs. The way that people use language is very complicated, because it depends what mood they're in, whether they're joking, etc., and these subtle parts of language can be particularly difficult for autistic people to understand. When we say; "Ha ha, you silly idiot!", we don't always really think that the person is an idiot, we might just be saying what a silly mistake they made in a jokey, friendly kind of way. If the word is heard in a happy tone of voice with a bit of a giggle, an autistic child might accidentally think that it must be a good, nice word, because they don't understand yet the meaning that you'd find in a dictionary, or don't realise that the tone of voice is just as important as the word itself.

    The repetitive, stuttery talking that you mentioned sounds more like what's called "echolalia", which is relatively common for autistic people, though by no means most of us. The repeated word or phrase is often something that the person only just heard (repeating a question that they were just asked, for example), or one of their own words that gets stuck on a loop, maybe while they're stuck trying to work out what the next words should be. Sometimes, it can just be a certain word or words that the person always seems to get stuck looping, and they're fine until they need to say that particular word.

    These are things which can be helped with speech therapy and specialised language teaching, so I would definitely mention them to the early-help worker when you get the chance.

Reply
  • Welcome,

    I agree with the previous reply that, from what you've said so far, this doesn't sound like Tourette's (it's named after a French doctor, which is why it's such a tricky one to spell!) The tics of Tourette's are uncontrollable by the person doing them, so they can happen at any time, not just when the person is trying to communicate with someone or talking to themself. In the people that I have met with Tourette's, their verbal tics don't sound like part of what they are trying to say. If they happen while the person is speaking, they sound like random interruptions in odd places in the sentence, and often not in the same tone of voice; for example, like; "Hello, [chocolate!] my name [chocolate! chocolate!] is Trog." Some people with autism do have Tourette's as well, but as the previous poster said, it's an independent condition, not part of their autism.

    However, autistic people do often have difficulties with language which can make their style of speech unusual, especially when they're young and working out all of the new skills that it needs. The way that people use language is very complicated, because it depends what mood they're in, whether they're joking, etc., and these subtle parts of language can be particularly difficult for autistic people to understand. When we say; "Ha ha, you silly idiot!", we don't always really think that the person is an idiot, we might just be saying what a silly mistake they made in a jokey, friendly kind of way. If the word is heard in a happy tone of voice with a bit of a giggle, an autistic child might accidentally think that it must be a good, nice word, because they don't understand yet the meaning that you'd find in a dictionary, or don't realise that the tone of voice is just as important as the word itself.

    The repetitive, stuttery talking that you mentioned sounds more like what's called "echolalia", which is relatively common for autistic people, though by no means most of us. The repeated word or phrase is often something that the person only just heard (repeating a question that they were just asked, for example), or one of their own words that gets stuck on a loop, maybe while they're stuck trying to work out what the next words should be. Sometimes, it can just be a certain word or words that the person always seems to get stuck looping, and they're fine until they need to say that particular word.

    These are things which can be helped with speech therapy and specialised language teaching, so I would definitely mention them to the early-help worker when you get the chance.

Children
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