Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone, I am new to this site and not sure wether this is the best place to post my question.. but il give it a shot, I am in need of advise, My eldest son is 7 and I have been struggling for the past 2 years to get help for him. He has always had a few funny quirks shall we say but is has hightened over time, I have asked for help from the school, doctors, social services and any one I could really. I do not know if he would be considered as having Autism but I do suspect he is on the spectrum. I have voiced my concerns and just been told hes a bright child that's being naughty for my attention! This is so not the case, he has huge melt downs, he tends to go for hitting out if they are not handled correctly, then he will completely close off as if you are not there, and he will cry for hours until you can find away to get him out of it ( well i get him out of it as i'm the only person who can) He struggles in a big way with change, even the slighest change is to much to handle, I have to tell him exactly what we are doing, where we are going and who will be there, if this doesn't go the way it was planned he has a melt down, He also suffers anxienty and some days just doesn't want to leave the house, he has no awarness of any type of danger and has no respect for aurthority, myself, my parents or the police, i'm at a loss what to do next to help him.. he's such a beautitful bright boy, it's breaking my heart to see him like this, he's struggling alot at school and I fear if I don't get some sort of diagnois and help then school will get worse and he will slowly drown with all the pressures of every day life flooding in on him.. Can anbody relate? Is there something in thinking he is on the spectrum or am I just being silly like the school says? any advice would be greatfully recieved xx
You're absolutely right, even a non-diagnosis is a step towards the truth, and any proper parent would see it that way otherwise you'd just be giving up. You DO need to understand your GP decision, and yes, you need that local support.
Go to it, and good luck
Thank you for your'e relpies I will take on board all of the suggestions, It is a very tricky one, I don't want to fall into the mind set of people who read an article online then believe they or there child have a condition, Various people I have come into contact with (other mum's as I run sensory groups) have with in a half hour session picked up on My son's ways and said oh does he have Autism? as many of there children do and they can see it in him, I had never thought about it until recently.. silly I know as I am so connected with working with children that show the same signs but it all does seem to fit now! I have brought my children up using attachment parenting, they are spoiled with love and time not things and money.. so I know it cannot be that hes being a "spoiled brat" as someone once called him! After a year of constantly requesting any form of extenral help I finally have a key worker.. I have voiced my opnions to her and just hope she will come back with some anwsers for me, in the mean time I will look into all these other things, I am lucky enough to have a NAS locally to me so I think I will go in and seek some local advice to.. I just needed to know that I am not being crazy in approaching the doctor for the 4th time and requesting for him to be tested.. Even if it comes back that he isn't I know it won't be a waste of time because it means i'm one step closer to finding out what is going on and that means closer to helping him. Thank you for you're help x
This is such an old story about the parents being to blame, but of course, sometimes they are! I know it's no comfort to you, but ASD children are only about 1% of the school population and we have endless stories about being ignored and overlooked.
I certainly relate to everything you say about his behaviour, it reminds me of me at that age - and I'm a person with a high IQ and ASD. It isn't possible for me to say for definite because there are alternative explanations too. Obviously, you've tried your best to get him assessed, and been rebuffed, but if those traits are true and obvious, I support your thinking of course. I'm also a parent, I know our tendencies to defend and excuse our own children but I also know the concern that their behaviour can cause.
If you believe that you are right, don't let your faith in your beliefs waver. If you show doubt, you're opening up room for teachers, doctors and social workers etc, who tend to see things this way because it takes the least effort ( I think it's called empathy fatigue, something like that) to suggest that you're using ASD as a 'convenient' excuse for the naughty behaviour of an undisciplined child.
Equally, I urge you to caution. It can be very easy to read the indicators for ASD and then make a person's behaviour fit. I'm not saying that you are, I'm saying that the possibility exists and I expect that professionals have, in their opinion, encountered it, children are difficult to diagnose at best, and so are the motivations of some parents.
Pardon the harsh analogy, it's the only one I can think of at the moment. Consider allegations of 'rape'. We know that false allegations do get made, with various motivations behind them, so how can we tell whether a complaint is genuine? Only by proper investigation by qualified professionals.
So there's one question that requires an answer. ASD diagnosis requires assessment by a qualified professional, 'knowing' some indicators isn't the same, so how have less than fully qualified people stated categorically that your son isn't ASD, without asking a qualified professional to carry out a proper investigation? I think it's a perfectly valid question to put to your GP, as long as you're ready to listen carefuly to the answer.
I speculate sometimes that if parents could copy and paste our answers into a printable document and show them to doctors and teachers, whether it might give them cause to reconsider after hearing the views of diagnosed people?
We all know that getting professionals to listen to us is next to impossible because, it seems, they simply can't allow for their own paucity of specialist knowledge. I call it professional 'I know best' arrogance, I wonder what they call it? They won't say...
I hope that you've already spoken with the Helpline? If not, I think you need to.
I don't think it is right for the school to be dismissive like that. Children behave differently at home from at school for one thing - there are plenty of posts on this - children will try to keep a low profile in school to avoid unwelcome attention from peers but let go at home. Also the kind of contact teachers have doesn't place them in a position to observe all the time.
If you are concerned you should approach your GP. What you describe sounds appropriate for autistic behaviours but you need to get a referral, through the GP, to experienced assessors. It is in his interests to get the right facts. If it is not due to autism it might be something else.
Read the "About Autism" pages on the NAS website. They are a bit erratic, and you need to search patiently. Deep down in the menu there is a lot of very useful information. If you can be more informed, you can better address know-it-all teachers being, frankly, unprofessional.
Also use the search for services in your area (red maps on home and community pages of the NAS website). Again its a bit unreliable, depends what you ask for, and often comes up with London services first even if you are asking about Newcastle. See if there is a local NAS group or other parents group. They can give advice on how best to proceed and can give you support through the process.
Ask questions on here about behaviours. Other parents can respond telling you their experiences.