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newbie....parent of autistic child

Roo's dad
over 9 years ago

I have just signed up to the site so I will introduce myself (without names)

I am the dad of a 5 year old recently diagnosed as being on the spectrum.

My son has always seemed like a normal child in our (parents) eyes. He has an older brother and sister and a good relationship with both, more his sister than his brother due to his brother being a teenager but they still get along great!

When our son was at nursery, aged 3, his key worker noticed some differences in our son compared to the other children and suggested we spoke to the child development centre for an assessment, 2 years on and he has his diagnosis as being on the spectrum.

As we have always seen him as a normal child, I personally have no idea on what to watch out for, if anything, he has opened my eyes to a whole new world!! At 5 years old his knowledge of technology is beyond me, it got to the point we had to have broadband removed as he literally became the computer, he now only has his Internet access via my own mobile phone. He absolutely loves wildlife, he has plenty of pets (tropical fish tank, goldfish tank, African clawed frog, 2 cockatiel,  3 mice and 6 cats!) and wants a parrot aswell but he can talk about all his pets along with other animals, he loves the sea life centres and often says we should be the ones in the tanks and not the animals. He loves nature,only 5 year old I know who asks me to buy him a pop up green house, plant pots, soil and seeds then will spend time potting things and watching them grow. As I'm originally from a big city and moved to a small town, my lifestyle has always been hectic so I have never stopped to look at the world around me, my son has opened my eyes to a lot of the world, when I see a flower, it's a flower, a bird is a bird but to my son, a flower is the most beautiful thing in the world, he'll describe the colours, the smell, every minor detail and it really does make me stop and look at things differently even when he's at school and I'm going about my daily work.

So what I see as a normal child is actually someone very fascinating who is also teaching me a lot as he grows, I've worked with disabled people in the past (having a disabled younger brother) but this is a new learning curve, admitted it can be stressful but at the same time it's enjoyable! I will be posting in other areas of the site (parents and carers section) and also reading posts to learn more aswell as trying to get involved in conversations where possible.

Parents
  • over 9 years ago
    Hi 23+Lily'smum Thank you for the compliments. Riley is definitely a very bright child who does get a lot of attention from others due to his ways but he also has negative attention from other kids unfortunately. After reading about Lily, I can see a few similarities to Riley, we suspected he had hearing problems but after tests it turned out he was just ignoring us but then it went the opposite way where now he can hear a pin drop in the neighbours houses! This is usually a stress to him but he copes as well as he can and when it gets too much he will often hide his head in my chest. His speech was slow but he started mainstream school in September 2014 and his speech jumped ahead, his teacher commented on how well his reading and writing is, he is 2 levels ahead of his class but he lacks the social communication which makes him struggle at times. I feel we was quite lucky as his nursery actually picked up on things and helped us to get a referral as the development centre were trying to make us wait until he was 8 but when they looked at the family history they decided to push us through, it took us 2 years in total to get his diagnosis (diagnosed on 15th July 2015) but the development centre also pointed out other things that we had already noticed and have also put in a referral for further testing to see if there are any underlying things as he is also a carrier of a chromosome abnormality. I really enjoy learning from him, he hasn't got the hand flapping very noticeable as he seems to hide it in a dance and the own space thing, that's brilliant! I love watching reactions from his brother and sister when he tells them that he doesn't want them to be in his space, only time it's ever concerning is when we catch him looking deep in thought, sat in a corner and refusing to come and join us or talk to us. As I say though, he is a bright clever child and attracts a lot of attention from older people as he is always smiling, making people laugh, dancing or looking after the animals and plants, even to the point he tries to clean the streets saying people need to recycle more buy then throws a tantrum as he's not as clean as he wants to be. There's so much we can learn from him or any other child on the spectrum, I haven't seen a real negative side yet other than how other children in the street act towards him, the only other thing we've noticed is that he will make eye contact with me  but he won't make eye contact with any other family member and has at times seen his mum as an enemy which can last a few hours at a time. We have been told he does the same with school teachers, he has just left the reception class where he had 4 class teachers, he bonded with 2 other them so they had to make sure atleast 1 of those teachers were in the class everyday, we're interested to see how he gets on going up a year and having more structured days in the class, we think he's going to struggle but want to give him a chance at the mainstream school but we have already talked between ourselves about possibly contacting a school that specialises with disabilities which is local and seem a lot more autism friendly but we will see how he gets on after September.  I hope you get the assessments started for Lily soon and get some answers that will either confirm things or direct you to answers but either way as long as you and Lily  are happy, is all that matters, enjoy the moments and I'm sure by the time she reaches 5, you'll have so many funny memories of the past and know there's a lot more to come as well as learning things from her point of view, I'm often found sat down outside with my son listening as he describes the world from his view and it's fascinating!
Reply
  • over 9 years ago
    Hi 23+Lily'smum Thank you for the compliments. Riley is definitely a very bright child who does get a lot of attention from others due to his ways but he also has negative attention from other kids unfortunately. After reading about Lily, I can see a few similarities to Riley, we suspected he had hearing problems but after tests it turned out he was just ignoring us but then it went the opposite way where now he can hear a pin drop in the neighbours houses! This is usually a stress to him but he copes as well as he can and when it gets too much he will often hide his head in my chest. His speech was slow but he started mainstream school in September 2014 and his speech jumped ahead, his teacher commented on how well his reading and writing is, he is 2 levels ahead of his class but he lacks the social communication which makes him struggle at times. I feel we was quite lucky as his nursery actually picked up on things and helped us to get a referral as the development centre were trying to make us wait until he was 8 but when they looked at the family history they decided to push us through, it took us 2 years in total to get his diagnosis (diagnosed on 15th July 2015) but the development centre also pointed out other things that we had already noticed and have also put in a referral for further testing to see if there are any underlying things as he is also a carrier of a chromosome abnormality. I really enjoy learning from him, he hasn't got the hand flapping very noticeable as he seems to hide it in a dance and the own space thing, that's brilliant! I love watching reactions from his brother and sister when he tells them that he doesn't want them to be in his space, only time it's ever concerning is when we catch him looking deep in thought, sat in a corner and refusing to come and join us or talk to us. As I say though, he is a bright clever child and attracts a lot of attention from older people as he is always smiling, making people laugh, dancing or looking after the animals and plants, even to the point he tries to clean the streets saying people need to recycle more buy then throws a tantrum as he's not as clean as he wants to be. There's so much we can learn from him or any other child on the spectrum, I haven't seen a real negative side yet other than how other children in the street act towards him, the only other thing we've noticed is that he will make eye contact with me  but he won't make eye contact with any other family member and has at times seen his mum as an enemy which can last a few hours at a time. We have been told he does the same with school teachers, he has just left the reception class where he had 4 class teachers, he bonded with 2 other them so they had to make sure atleast 1 of those teachers were in the class everyday, we're interested to see how he gets on going up a year and having more structured days in the class, we think he's going to struggle but want to give him a chance at the mainstream school but we have already talked between ourselves about possibly contacting a school that specialises with disabilities which is local and seem a lot more autism friendly but we will see how he gets on after September.  I hope you get the assessments started for Lily soon and get some answers that will either confirm things or direct you to answers but either way as long as you and Lily  are happy, is all that matters, enjoy the moments and I'm sure by the time she reaches 5, you'll have so many funny memories of the past and know there's a lot more to come as well as learning things from her point of view, I'm often found sat down outside with my son listening as he describes the world from his view and it's fascinating!
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