Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, first time poster here and just looking for a bit of advice. I have an 8 year old son who was diagnosed with autism (on the mild end of the spectrum) at 4 years old. His school consider him high functioning but recently have called me in on a couple of occasions as they feel that his symptoms are worsening - he seems to get upset more easily, more things seem to trigger his upsets and they are finding it increasingly difficult to pull him out of his minor meltdowns. Historically his behaviour has been fine at home, but I am also finding more and more instances of him getting easily upset about fairly minor things that wouldn't have triggered him previously. This is also more pronounced outside of home, he seems to be triggered by things much more easily - for example queuing in traffic seems to be a current bone of contention. Other than having him diagnosed, I have never received any kind of support and I'm not sure where to go for support so thought I would start here to gauge others experiences of their children at around this age. Also worth mentioning that he lost his Mum to *** cancer 18 months ago, and whilst there has not seemingly been any reaction to this from either him or his younger brother (who is not on the spectrum) I am not sure if this change in behaviour/worsening of his autism could in some way be attributed to that.
Just trying to ultimately understand if it is usual for children to experience a worsening of their condition over time.
Thanks
Hi,
Welcome to the forum, my daughter is 8 and currently awaiting diagnosis she is in mainstream school and used to cope well. Until she started year 3 and turned 8! All her sensory issues have gotten so much more pronounced and things that used to cause a minor outburst now cause a full meltdown, the only thing we have been able to attribute this to is the increase of social demands as she gets older, she has noticed a difference between herself and her peers and doesn't understand their games so she gets agitated and this has an almost domino like effect on her!
This site has loads of information on addressing behaviour and the services directory can show you what is available in your area, there is also a parent to parent service
Wishing you all the best