Meeting parents with autistic children

Hi everyone,  my daughters 2.5 and we are going to a multidisciplinary team meeting with all the health professionals involved in her care in October.  We know that we will be told she id autistic as they all already refer to her as so but nobody has yet given us a formal diagnosis.  

We knew from about 18 months that she was somewhere on the spectrum. I change my mind everyday about how severe she might be because on a good day we get some compliance, good eye contact and a very happy little girl. On a bad day we get tears, incoherent echolalia shouting all day long and its just like she doesn't even know we are there.  She had words but her speech is all delayed echolalia. She has never formed a spontaneous sentence and doesn't express her needs. She would go all day without indicating she wanted a drink or food if we let her.  I've seen little change in her since she turned 2 and I'm wondering if we will ever make progress.  We're in the rossendale area and we've never met any other parents with a child with asd as young as our daughter.  I really hope we meet some soon as I feel you need the support of others that understand.

Hi suze. What area do u live in. I live in london/hackney. The service here is great. We have been seeing speech language therapist for 6 week... No had a 6 week break and now starting this week another 6 weeks. Last four months been going to portage gropus (home teachers) every week. Now the teachers will be visiting us at home once a week for 12 weeks. my son got diagnosed 6 june. Last month. Have u guys seen the paediactric doctor yet or phycology. They were the two to diagnose him formally. Thanks for writing. Its nice to hear from other parents x

Hello,

My son was 3 years old in April and is most likely autistic, but has not diagnosis.  He has his second communication clinic on Tuesday I think they will be the ones that will eventually diagnose. I think I knew about my son from when he was about 18months old.  I wasn't sure but had suspicions.  My son doesn't communiaion very well, he has lots of individual words but no sentances, hand flaps, spins etc.

The only help in our area which we have been offered is an early place at a local authority nursery (3 months early) and a home teacher that started visiting back in Feb/March and she has only seen him about 6 times, 3 times at my house and the same at the nursery.

There is no real speech therapy in our area due to budget cuts.. They provide the parents with a 10 week training course so we can provide all speech therapy.  We are starting this in September.  This really terrifies me, I feel it such a big responsibility to be in charge of my sons speech therapy, when I am not qualified to do so.   It really does seem to be a postcode lottery with therapies.  Anyway that's my rant.

I also have a 5 month old baby girl :) who I am already watching like a hawk lol

Thank you for writing to me. your last words really got me emotional. i knew there was something different about my son Ali when he was just 6months old, i took him to the GP at 10months and straight away i said to the doctor that my son is either deaf or autistic. he had his hearing test and that was ok. So at 14 months old he had his first appoinment with the development doctors. then was added OT, speech therapy. Ali was diagnosed 4weeks after his 2nd birthday. He cant talk yet but newly started babbleling. In a way im lucky i also have a 3 and half year old, who Ali loves and started newly copying him when he runs. Theres actually so much to say.. I think i would need lots of pages

Hi Radia - welcome to the site.  You've come to the right place to find people who understand.  Also, as you may already have discovered, there's loads of info via the home pg + the posts.  My son was also diagnosed before his 3rd birthday, but that was a long time ago - he's an adult now.  How's your son doing?  We all hear you