I have avoided posting this, but its on my daily thoughts, so I am just going to throw it out there and see what others have to say. Sorry its long!
Here's the family history - three boys from my first marriage, DS1 is 13 and has Aspergers, just dx in December 09. The psychologist who tested DS1 thought that my other two were likely on the spectrum after my parent interview, though they have not yet been tested. But after weeks of reading and research, I am certain that DS2 (11) also has Aspergers. and DS3 (8) is likely mild PDD-NOS. Their father and I are divorced, and he is a very rigid, black and white thinker who has anxiety and is socially awkward. So I want to say the gene component is his fault
but who knows. I can be a little ADD-ish and hyper-focused on one topic, and eye contact in certain situations can be difficult for me, so who knows!
Anyway, my current DH and I have one child together who is now 14 months old. Some of DH's childhood descriptions have made me wonder about spectrum-issues though he seems almost totally NT to me now. Our baby has had GI issues related to food sensitivities from his first day of life. His whole first year I have been trying to get him stabilized in that area. Interestingly, the best information I have found as to the root causes of IgG / GI problems is the information for biomedical treatments for ASD. When he is having a food reaction, in addition to the GI symptoms, he has weird behavior; he cries differently, doesn't sleep well, wiggles the back of his hand against his mouth and makes a "underwater" sound, he opens and closes his hand next to his face while nursing, and makes a deep growling vocalizations during play. I know all babies do "weird" things now and again, but these behaviors are gone when he is not reacting to foods and back when he's reacting. His best diet right now for controling his GI and behavior/sleep is GFDF and low salicylate - both also treatments for ASD. This kind of freaks me out in and of itself.
Developmentally he seems pretty on target, at least as far as standard milestones go. His language development is normal, he babbles with inflection and uses several words. He says no, and shakes his head in response to a question. He is smiley, warm and affectionate with us all. He is interested in other kids. He plays peek a boo and patty-cake. He like books, both to look through on own and to be read to. He will sometimes point to a familiar animal on the page if I ask him, "Where's the doggy?" or something like that. He pretends to talk on the phone, and pretends to make the toy bunny hop, goes vroom, vroom with the toy car, etc. His fine motor skills are excellent, and his gross motor skills seem good as well, though he is not yet walking. He loves to play ball and will throw it with accuracy to us and will hold out his hands for us to throw it back.
Here are my areas of concern after reading ALOT about the earliest red flags for ASD. He points at things to ask for them, and he will look at things we point to, but he usually doesn't look back at our face to see our reaction. For example, the street sweeper went by and I took him to the window. I pointed to it, down the street a ways, and he looked at it and made sounds, like "wow" but he didn't ever look back at me to "share" it. Its one of the things I have read he should do, and he doesn't usually. He also doesn't consistently respond to just his name, I have to say more to get his attention. He doesn't look or point at me when DH says, "Where's mama?" or vice versa when I ask, "Where's Daddy?". We've been trying for weeks to get him to do it and he just won't. Yet when he wants me, he will crawl around and call for me, "Ma? Ma?" so he definitely knows who I am. In fact, he is very attached to me and doesn't like me to leave for any reason. He will often call out my name just to check on my whereabouts, so its weird that he won't look at me when DH asks him that. He will look at other stuff that we ask about, like if we say, "Where are the chickens?" he looks out the back window for them. He doesn't really do stuff to "show off" for us, like if he does something funny, and we laugh, he'll laugh too, but he doesn't really do it again to get us to laugh. I can't recall him bringing a toy to me to show me, or pointing to show me something of interest, but he will point to show me something he wants to hold or play with, or eat and then look at my face and say "Ma?" and sometimes pat his chest to indicate he wants it. Its really cute.
So there you have it. Do you see red flags? Would you be worried? I almost called EI today to schedule an eval for him, but after going over their online developmental milestone checklist, he's doing everything and then some and I think they are going to
as to why I am bringing him in.
Here's the family history - three boys from my first marriage, DS1 is 13 and has Aspergers, just dx in December 09. The psychologist who tested DS1 thought that my other two were likely on the spectrum after my parent interview, though they have not yet been tested. But after weeks of reading and research, I am certain that DS2 (11) also has Aspergers. and DS3 (8) is likely mild PDD-NOS. Their father and I are divorced, and he is a very rigid, black and white thinker who has anxiety and is socially awkward. So I want to say the gene component is his fault
but who knows. I can be a little ADD-ish and hyper-focused on one topic, and eye contact in certain situations can be difficult for me, so who knows!Anyway, my current DH and I have one child together who is now 14 months old. Some of DH's childhood descriptions have made me wonder about spectrum-issues though he seems almost totally NT to me now. Our baby has had GI issues related to food sensitivities from his first day of life. His whole first year I have been trying to get him stabilized in that area. Interestingly, the best information I have found as to the root causes of IgG / GI problems is the information for biomedical treatments for ASD. When he is having a food reaction, in addition to the GI symptoms, he has weird behavior; he cries differently, doesn't sleep well, wiggles the back of his hand against his mouth and makes a "underwater" sound, he opens and closes his hand next to his face while nursing, and makes a deep growling vocalizations during play. I know all babies do "weird" things now and again, but these behaviors are gone when he is not reacting to foods and back when he's reacting. His best diet right now for controling his GI and behavior/sleep is GFDF and low salicylate - both also treatments for ASD. This kind of freaks me out in and of itself.
Developmentally he seems pretty on target, at least as far as standard milestones go. His language development is normal, he babbles with inflection and uses several words. He says no, and shakes his head in response to a question. He is smiley, warm and affectionate with us all. He is interested in other kids. He plays peek a boo and patty-cake. He like books, both to look through on own and to be read to. He will sometimes point to a familiar animal on the page if I ask him, "Where's the doggy?" or something like that. He pretends to talk on the phone, and pretends to make the toy bunny hop, goes vroom, vroom with the toy car, etc. His fine motor skills are excellent, and his gross motor skills seem good as well, though he is not yet walking. He loves to play ball and will throw it with accuracy to us and will hold out his hands for us to throw it back.
Here are my areas of concern after reading ALOT about the earliest red flags for ASD. He points at things to ask for them, and he will look at things we point to, but he usually doesn't look back at our face to see our reaction. For example, the street sweeper went by and I took him to the window. I pointed to it, down the street a ways, and he looked at it and made sounds, like "wow" but he didn't ever look back at me to "share" it. Its one of the things I have read he should do, and he doesn't usually. He also doesn't consistently respond to just his name, I have to say more to get his attention. He doesn't look or point at me when DH says, "Where's mama?" or vice versa when I ask, "Where's Daddy?". We've been trying for weeks to get him to do it and he just won't. Yet when he wants me, he will crawl around and call for me, "Ma? Ma?" so he definitely knows who I am. In fact, he is very attached to me and doesn't like me to leave for any reason. He will often call out my name just to check on my whereabouts, so its weird that he won't look at me when DH asks him that. He will look at other stuff that we ask about, like if we say, "Where are the chickens?" he looks out the back window for them. He doesn't really do stuff to "show off" for us, like if he does something funny, and we laugh, he'll laugh too, but he doesn't really do it again to get us to laugh. I can't recall him bringing a toy to me to show me, or pointing to show me something of interest, but he will point to show me something he wants to hold or play with, or eat and then look at my face and say "Ma?" and sometimes pat his chest to indicate he wants it. Its really cute.
So there you have it. Do you see red flags? Would you be worried? I almost called EI today to schedule an eval for him, but after going over their online developmental milestone checklist, he's doing everything and then some and I think they are going to
as to why I am bringing him in.
) and very verbal and pointed and had appropriate motor milestones. But he doesn't respond consistently to his name and he doesn't look back for my response to things ("experience sharing"). The social/communication delays weren't evident until he was about 4 years and the peer play started to get challenging.
When it was done, he picked it up and looked at me and then handed it to me to wind it again. His behavior was much more like the typical child in the video than the ASD child, the only difference I could see is that DS didn't particularly like the toy, he didn't really smile at it, or me, but he did check in with me or DH several times during our game to check our faces to make sure it was "ok" . Eventually he seemed to like the toy and he definitely used gestures and eye contact to ask us to wind it up again.
