My son seems to have deteriorated over the last three years since turning 10 ( he is now 13). We recently had him reassessed privately and discovered his IQ was only 70, I don't think they assessed his IQ when he was diagnosed with autism at 8.
He has some major memory problems, he seems to have forgotten his own surname after not writing it for a year. He's not retaining any learning information for example how to do written sums. He seems not to have progressed since year 4. He can't remember characters in a book he has read. He gets mixed up between cows and horses, if the cow is brown he insists that it's a horse because he thinks cows are black and white. He seems to have facial blindness which might explain this, although all this has become much worse in the last three years, (he used to remember characters for longer and be able to distinguish between different animals more easily.) He used to remember to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, but recently he keeps forgetting to do this.
He's also started having melt downs and toddler-like tantrums if he is asked to do something he doesn't want to do despite not having regular melt downs since he was around 6. His maturity level is around an 8 year old and he doesn't seem to be changing in this area. He has recently started peeing on his carpet at night after not wetting the bed since he was 10.
The doctor said that memory loss without other symptoms is not a concern and it could just be his hormones affecting his concentration. Has anyone else experienced this sort of deterioration in their child's teens and did they improve afterwards? He doesn't have physical symptoms apart from a bit of clumsiness, but he has grown a lot recently.
His home life is settled and there's been no big changes to upset him. He seems happy enough day to day. The dynamics with his younger brother have changed and he has started treating him like an older brother because he is more mature and independent despite being only 11. I think this has upset and challenged his brother the most.
We are worried in case there is something else affecting our son's health and development. We don't know what to expect as he grows and what we should be concerned about.
Any insights would be welcome.
