Autism thread

Glad this thread has revived itself, I was ready to contribute an update.

My little guy Owen (2.5 years old), who we have always suspected was on the spectrum is looking more and more like he is. We have a proper assessment coming in the next month, we had to go private as the waiting list here (Canada) for a publicly funded one was at least 6 months. We had proactively started speech therapy (privately) about a month ago, as that seemed to be his major delay. As he ages though, we just aren't seeing much development in other areas.. so we decided to pay for the private assessment. We are absolutely dreading, what we are all but sure his diagnoses will be.

His language is severely delayed, only has about 20-30 words most of which are unintelligible to all but us. He seems to exhibit echolalia quite often, especially when he is frustrated or angry. Oddly enough, recently he learned to read and say the entire alphabet in about 3 days, but his word development is SLOW. Socially he is very affectionate, and has an amazing sense of humor.. as long as its with people he knows. He interacts well with family and friends, but when a stranger addresses him, he all but ignores them. He loves to line things up.. always has. His favorite toy is Thomas the train engine, and it would be nothing for him to spend 45 min. playing with it at a time. He loves to play with his older sisters, and is very interactive. It's things like this that have always caused us to second guess our suspicions of ASD.

Of course my wife (Occupational Therapist) and myself (registered nurse) are expecting the worst. As a parent you just want your child to be "normal", and it's heartbreaking to think about what his future will be like.

Concentric, it certainly sounds like our little guys are very similar... maybe we connect sometime (email).

El-Producto wrote:

Glad this thread has revived itself, I was ready to contribute an update.

My little guy Owen (2.5 years old), who we have always suspected was on the spectrum is looking more and more like he is. We have a proper assessment coming in the next month, we had to go private as the waiting list here (Canada) for a publicly funded one was at least 6 months. We had proactively started speech therapy (privately) about a month ago, as that seemed to be his major delay. As he ages though, we just aren't seeing much development in other areas.. so we decided to pay for the private assessment. We are absolutely dreading, what we are all but sure his diagnoses will be.

His language is severely delayed, only has about 20-30 words most of which are unintelligible to all but us. He seems to exhibit echolalia quite often, especially when he is frustrated or angry. Oddly enough, recently he learned to read and say the entire alphabet in about 3 days, but his word development is SLOW. Socially he is very affectionate, and has an amazing sense of humor.. as long as its with people he knows. He interacts well with family and friends, but when a stranger addresses him, he all but ignores them. He loves to line things up.. always has. His favorite toy is Thomas the train engine, and it would be nothing for him to spend 45 min. playing with it at a time. He loves to play with his older sisters, and is very interactive. It's things like this that have always caused us to second guess our suspicions of ASD.

Of course my wife (Occupational Therapist) and myself (registered nurse) are expecting the worst. As a parent you just want your child to be "normal", and it's heartbreaking to think about what his future will be like.

Concentric, it certainly sounds like our little guys are very similar... maybe we connect sometime (email).

I'd be very happy to do that. Our sons do sound similar. Keep at it. We see progress practically every day. BTW here are some resources the psychologist who administered the ADOS recommended: Early Start Denver protocol, Positive Impact, and TEACCH (or structured teaching, as the generic version is called.). Here are 2 books she likes: A Parent's Guide to Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism by Ozonoff and The Verbal Behavior Approach by Barbera with Rasmussen. The parent I talked to at lunch emphasized how much success she's had with using visual scheduling. I was really happy to see how quickly my son warmed up to her son.

El-Producto:

Sorry you are going through this too. It sucks. I was hopeful you might dodge this particular bullet since your child is doing so much better than mine is, sad to say.

Elycion:

Thanks for telling your son's story. I liked it for obvious reasons. I'd ask a bunch of questions, like "when was his first word?", "when did he really develop good receptive language?" etc. But I'd just use the answers to torture myself by setting arbitrary goal lines for my son. I've done that plenty in the past and it's led to disappointment.

concentric and FSeven:

Thanks for sharing your experiences as well. To be honest, we haven't been very diligent about working on his sensory issues. From what I've read, the basic idea is to put him on a sensory diet of activities to satisfy his sensory needs on a scheduled basis. Movement would probably be his main thing and we did set up an indoor swing for him. He also likes deep pressure, but hates being confined. We haven't tried the brush protocol. I'm skeptical it would make a huge difference and we'd probably just give up on it unfortunately.

I work full time and my wife struggles with depression even more than I do right now. She focuses most of her energy on keeping him fed, clothed and taking him to his various therapies. She also likes to take him to entertaining places like the zoo, I'm not sure this helps much because he is totally disinterested in things he should be interested in. A giraffe could get right up in his face and I doubt he would even give it a second glance.

In general, I think it's hard for my wife to maintain appropriate level "therapeutic" interactions with him throughout the day. It's very tiring to constantly try to engage someone who doesn't really reciprocate much. I can't really say anything without being a big hypocrite though. When I get home from work and little guy is in his own world, a lot of times I just let him be for a while then feel guilty about it. We should probably be talking to him constantly in very simple language but it's hard to maintain.

What we have been working on pretty consistently is getting him to verbally request things from us with his limited repertoire of 2 word approximations. Progress has been very slow, almost nonexistent for something that seems so trivial; saying "go" ("guh") every time he wants us to open a door for him for example. It's frustrating to see him go up to a door, start frantically clapping his hands together in his version of the "more" sign, then start saying "buh, buh" repeatedly, then getting upset. Occasionally he will get it right on the first try, but a lot of times we have to remind him of the correct word. At least he is trying to communicate I guess, which he wasn't doing 8 months ago.

One thing that honestly worries me, and I never thought I'd say this... my son seems to have no interest in television whatsoever. He will barely glance at it no matter what obnoxiously loud and hyper children's TV show we have on. This bums me about because I think a lot of kids this age learn a great deal from watching Sesame Street or whatever modern equivalents there are. Also I wonder what this means about my son that he could care less about even TV. Is this just another sign that he's more low functioning than most? No idea.

I see all these other kids with autism in my son's special needs classes and it seems like even the ones who can't speak all have at least one strength, whether it's navigating an Ipad or doing puzzles or following commands or naming alphabet letters. My son can do none of this. He can't even figure out ring-stacking or put two blocks on top of each other or do a peg board puzzle mastered by one year olds. Heck, I don't think he even knows his own name. Maybe he does.

OK, I didn't mean for this post to head back to my anxieties about his lack of development, but I guess I can't help myself since it's on my mind constantly. Gotta try to stay positive.

gewy,

I've been thinking a lot about what to write you. I really want the best for you and your family.

First, you and your wife are doing so much good for your son. Many people don't pick up on the signs early, or ignore them, or hope they will go away. You did not do that. That takes strength.

What I sense is how tired and frustrated you and she are. I understand this and not only have been there but will surely be feeling this over and over again as my son grows. What makes this harder is that your son doesn't seem to reciprocate. I am afraid that you are burning yourselves out.

I take an anti-anxiety pill, see a therapist, meditate, and exercise. All of these help me to relax and let things go. Would any of those help you and your wife? Is there anyone around who can give you a break? You and she need some time off.

Do you have an autism support group? Are there parents at your son's school you connect with? Now that we have an official diagnosis, I feel like I have permission to go to the local group, which I've heard some good things about. I am also part of an online group for people with autism and parents of children with autism. The online group is really helpful for getting some perspective on all this, because the children range from preschool to adolescent age and their levels of autism vary widely.

When I read about your son, I feel some of the sorrow you must feel at what you perceive as a lack of development. Over the weekend, I read my son's OT assessment. It really hurts to read about his weaknesses. It wears me down to see yet another area where we will need to get him therapy so that he can participate in the sort of things typically developing children do. When I saw that my son tested at the first percentile (!!!) for grasping skills (which he will need to have in order to write), I cried. I get angry when I see how far ahead typically developing children are. I want to be proud of him in the same way that they are of their children, and that hasn't really happened.

By the way, the OT/sensory stuff is something we've just started to address in the past couple of weeks. You will fit it in as you need. You are not behind or negligent by not doing it right away.

At the same time, when I look at my son, I do see development over time. He is beginning to be more social. This means that I have to prompt hello and goodbye less frequently. He's warming up to guests a little more quickly. He can now tell me if he likes something. I was beginning to think he never would do that. So I am really happy that your son is trying to communicate with you. That is a very big deal! That is tremendous progress! Keep it on his terms. When I am frustrated, I have to tell myself that my son is doing the best he can. You are giving him a great environment, and it's so clear how much you and your wife love and care for him. But he will show you development when he is ready to do that. Try not to compare him to the other children, especially if it will only frustrate you more. To me, that he is beginning to speak and is using some signs is a very special skill.

The parents of the children with autism have all told me that this age is very hard for these children. And all of them have told me that their children have made incredible progress with the sort of help you are providing him, so much so that they can't believe where they had been at that earlier point. Even parents of typically developing children don't know how they will turn out, and all of these children will have some area of difficulty. I have to remind myself that I cannot control how my son will develop and so always must focus on the day.

Much love to you all. I admire how much you and your wife are doing for your son. I want you, your wife, and your son to carve out some time so that you can just be. I am always ready to listen. I'm in the thick of this as well, and it's easy to get overwhelmed.

ETA: my son is 3 years and 3 months, if that provides some perspective. Hang in there.

I finally got off my butt and took stock of the books I have. So without further ado, here is the list.

  • Books are available on a first come, first served basis.
  • Please take your time and absorb the book as needed but be conscious of other parents that might have a need for that particular book.
  • If you finish a book and it is requested by another parent, please send it to them. If not, please send it back to me and I'll make sure it gets to whoever may need it.
  • If you own a book that you are finished with, please consider adding it to the list and making it available to other parents.
  • Some of these books are resources for therapists and are considerably expensive. Please be gentle!
  • I have access to a photocopier and unlimited paper at work. If you would rather me make copies and send you some of the more pertinent information from a particular book, I can do that. Hell, if you want me to copy the whole book I can do that too.

The Book List

[list]
[*]100 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism or Asperger's
[*]The Autism Sourcebook: Everything You Need to Know About Diagnosis, Treatment, Coping, and Healing
[*]Early Intervention Games: Fun, Joyful Ways to Develop Social and Motor Skills in Children with ASD (I am currently using but this will be available shortly)
[*]More Than Words
[*]Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder: A Mother's Story of Research and Recovery
[*]Special-Needs Kids Eat Right: Strategies to Help Kids on the Autism Spectrum Focus, Learn, and Thrive
[*]Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder: Part 1 (I am currently using, not yet available)

concentric wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

FSeven, your children are beautiful!

I completely agree!

Thank you! Looking at the pictures of kids in this thread I think it's obvious that Gwjers make some beautiful little kids.

concentric wrote:

Kind of funny how many things our families have in common, FSeven!

So true. And it seems like my son, your son, and El-Producto's son have very similar issues. That said, I think you guys are going to see the biggest improvements between 2.5 years and 4 years. I'm in the process of sifting through videos to find one of Émile at 2 years old and one of him now after just turning 4 years old to hopefully help anyone in this thread see that with some therapy and parents who are child advocates, what your child is like at 2 or 3 doesn't mean that's how he will be at 4. My son at 2 and 4 is like two completely different kids; one with a spectrum diagnosis and one that's neurotypical. I am not intending to post videos to create a comparison but rather to show that progress is possible. When my son was 2, in my frantic search for ANYTHING that could make me feel like I wasn't alone in the universe, I noticed a distinct lack of videos of spectrum children so that I could visualize behavior. I needed to see other kids with issues similar to my child for many different reasons.

The difficulty now is determining what are quirks of his diagnoses and what is typical 4 year old ornery behavior. It seems like it might be an easy distinction to make but I assure you it is very, very difficult. It's almost as if the further he falls off the spectrum and into neurotypical range, the more difficult it is to figure out what needs to be addressed and what is just normal kid behavior. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. I know that coming from where he was, this is a good problem to have. I'm just intimating that the work will never be done but it does get better!!

gewy wrote:

In general, I think it's hard for my wife to maintain appropriate level "therapeutic" interactions with him throughout the day. It's very tiring to constantly try to engage someone who doesn't really reciprocate much. I can't really say anything without being a big hypocrite though. When I get home from work and little guy is in his own world, a lot of times I just let him be for a while then feel guilty about it. We should probably be talking to him constantly in very simple language but it's hard to maintain.

I had the same issue. Wifey and kids would get home around 6:00 and because I hadn't seen him all day I felt that when he got home and after he ate, I should be trying to engage him in some therapy in the 90 minutes or so we had before it was bedtime. It was my wife who pulled me back and said, "Dan, he's been in preschool learning all day, has had therapy sessions, and has been surrounded by kids and teachers. He doesn't need more of that. He just needs some calm family time before bed."

So don't feel guilty. You are human and every human has limits. Think of therapy like a job for your child because that is kind of what it is. Whether he shows it or not he is mentally absorbing everything and his brain is trying to learn new things and modify it's own behavior. Not an easy thing to do at such a young age. Essentially, it's like a job for him. It's mentally taxing. So at the end of the day after you get home from work, what do you like to do? Unwind. Relax. I'm sure he could use some of that too after a tough day of therapy; just be a kid! So pull back a little. Maybe just sit with him and parallel play, letting him dictate how to play. Or allow him to get lost in something he loves. Try putting some simple kids songs on the radio on low (ABC song, anything easy to learn) so that he's absorbing it even if he's not paying attention to it.

I think one of the biggest benefits my son had was being able to go to daycare from 4 months old to preschool now at 4 years old in my wife's company. They have a subsidized daycare on the first floor. I say this not because my wife was able to check on him multiple times a day but because my son was forced to socialize from 4 months to 4 years. I think this was a huge help in getting him to come out of his shell and realize that human interaction is a necessary part of life. Now he waves hi to strangers and will talk to the cashier at the grocery store about whatever toy he has brought with him. He still tends to play by himself for the most part but he does play with other kids at various times through the day. Utilize any chances to socialize your kid. Take him everywhere and anywhere even if you might have to leave suddenly because he has a meltdown.

gewy wrote:

I see all these other kids with autism in my son's special needs classes and it seems like even the ones who can't speak all have at least one strength, whether it's navigating an Ipad or doing puzzles or following commands or naming alphabet letters. My son can do none of this. He can't even figure out ring-stacking or put two blocks on top of each other or do a peg board puzzle mastered by one year olds. Heck, I don't think he even knows his own name. Maybe he does.

Your son definitely has strengths. They simply have not revealed themselves yet. Exposing him to everything will accelerate the discovery.

gewy wrote:

OK, I didn't mean for this post to head back to my anxieties about his lack of development, but I guess I can't help myself since it's on my mind constantly. Gotta try to stay positive.

No worries. If you don't get this stuff off your chest it will drive you nuts. For some of us, me included, this is really the only support structure outside of family.

concentric wrote:

Sage advice

Read concentric's post again. Then read it again. It's textual chicken soup. Hang in there gewy I can promise you it gets better.

gewy, just know that you are not alone in this. You and your wife are doing a wonderful job in a VERY tough situation. Although I know very little about ASD right now I do believe that although your son may not reciprocate that you are his world and he loves you, he's just not wired to show it. .Feel free to pm me at any time if you just want to get stuff off your chest.

Update:

So we now have an OT assessment in 1 month, and a referral to a pediatrician which we are waiting for a response. I have been reading into Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder, and I don't wonder if Owen doesn't fit that mold. I have ordered a book that concentric recommended on speech.

For my Owen, language seems to REALLY be the difficult spot. He is making very little progress, but I'm hoping once we have an actual diagnoses and some professional advice we can start helping him. My wife being an Occupational Therapist is perfectly equipped to deliver the therapy.. we just need to know what to do.

We are seeing improvements in his socialization, and having the nanny and her 2 year old neurotypical son looking after Owen 3 days a week has been a godsend. She is so wonderful with Owen, and treats him just like she treats her son. Little example: we picked up a little pop-up play tent at Ikea last week, and the two of them were playing "together" in it, and were both popping their heads out to surprise the nanny. It seemed like Owen was actually mimicking and participating in play.

For us the biggest strain has been Owen's terrible sleep habits. He rarely goes to bed before 10:30pm and is often up through the night and then up at 6 am. We seem to be making some progress as we seem to have all but cut out his afternoon nap and for the last 3 nights he has been asleep by 7:30pm, and has slept through the night with only the occasional short wakeup. My wife and I feel like we have a new found freedom with being able to have a glass of wine and watch Netflix

Anyway, we are anxious to get the assessment done so we can help our little guy! fseven you have given me some much needed hope.

Thanks for offering to loan out some books, FSeven. That's a great idea. One of my coworkers has a much older child with autism, so she gave me a ton of books when I first spoke with her about it. Of course I bought plenty too. I haven't even read them all yet, but some were invaluable (More than Words and An Early Start for Your Child With Autism in particular). When my son is a little bit older, I'll be sure to pass them on as well.

As a side note, talking to her was not too helpful. Her son is much older and she's further along in the journey than I am. She's very much in a place of acceptance, while I'm still desperately looking for a way to change things. Also, the way she matter-of-factly discussed her son smearing feces on the walls horrified me. I think he outgrew that phase after a while (or was taught not to). It would probably put my wife in a suicidal state for real if our son started doing that frequently.

I'll add some books I like later today. They are all in ebook format so I don't think I can lend them.

About the feces: wait and see. NT kids do lots of disgusting things with poo too. Lots. A kid in my mommy group who is perfectly normal just did something I'd rather not describe with it.

The way I am thinking about the therapy now is that it is rewiring the brain, so it is bound to improve things. Doesn't mean the child may ever be "normal" but it has to help. We have been seeing some surprising big changes just in the first few days of preschool for my son.

My unconnected thoughts:

I am also in NJ. I have twins and they were born at 31 weeks. They were in the hospital for about a month.
We received services for our children up until age 3. They both started pre-school and after a few weeks we discovered that one of them was autistic.

Long story short.

My son will be 13. He is entering the 6th grade this year. He just got his first phone (iPhone 4) and loves it. Once a day he calls me and asks if I want to hear the doorbell.

He can pull dates out of his head and tell you who was there, the day of week, what we were doing and what he ate.

He is more independent then his typical brother. He can take things out of the refrigerator/freezer and at least reheat them on his own.

As, I was writing this, my son just called me and asked me to call him back and promptly hung up.

I've read reviews of this documentary and I'm glad to see it will be airing on PBS over the next few weeks:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/bestkeptsecret/

At a public school in Newark, N.J., the staff answers the phone by saying, "You've reached John F. Kennedy High School, Newark's best-kept secret." JFK provides an exceptional environment for students with special-education needs. In Best Kept Secret, Janet Mino, who has taught a class of young men for four years, is on an urgent mission. She races against the clock as graduation approaches for her severely autistic minority students. Once they graduate and leave the security of this nurturing place, their options for living independently will be few. Mino must help them find the means to support themselves before they "age out" of the system. (90 minutes)

In other news, preschool has been making a big positive difference for my son. He speaks more and more, and is becoming better attuned to social cues. We're doing a few other therapies right now, including one through the University of Iowa Center for Disabilities and Development, Project ImPACT. There's a companion book Teaching Social Communication to Children with Autism. I think that it would be useful even without the formal program. I've also been reading Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. It's been helpful.

Still waiting for an assessment.. it's getting frustrating.

The more I research my son's symptoms, the more it sounds like he has Sensory Processing Disorder rather than ASD.

He is definitely a sensory seeking kid, and if I look at the checklist it's uncanny with how many things I can check off. i.e. picky eater (has to do with oral sensation), tantrums when being dressed/diaper changed, prefers hugs to kisses, and as a baby would often arch back when picked up and cuddled.

I also understand, lots of SPD kids have speech problems.. similar to Owen's. He talks your ears off, you just can't understand a word he's saying.
I'm going to get a few books on the subject, and try some of the sensory things with him.

Such a frustrating journey, and some days I really get down about worrying if my little guy will ever be "normal".

I would say def. tactile.

Are you talking tactile or audio / visual?

Both of my kids had tactile issues and I remember one thing the therapist did was they put shaving cream on a table and let the kids squish it all around.

It's really hard to say without knowing your son, but lots of people on the spectrum have sensory issues, such as my son. On the other hand, we have a friend whose son has sensory issues but is not on the spectrum.

The Wilbarger brushing protocol has helped with my son, who is also a sensory seeker. He loves hugs, wrestling, and crashing into things.

My wife had a particularly rough evening tonight. She took Owen to Mom's and Tots gymnastics, and it didn't go so well.

Owen did not want to start the session in circle time, he just wanted to do his own thing. He did not want to wait his turn, and some of the parents were less than understanding. I think it might be that part of it, that my wife found so hard. By the end of it, he started to figure things it.. but it's situations like this which really cement the troubles that he has.

Really heartbreaking, and I wasn't even there.

Honestly, this is probably just a failure of text to fully convey the issues, but unless this is all in the extreme, it really sounds like normal toddler/baby stuff to me. All three of mine have done all of those things at some point or other in development, even the one who has a whole host of legitimate issues which stem from a congenital brain defect.

Did you prep him for the way things were going to proceed, El? My wife and I have found that when we describe a process to our son: Ok, after you do A then you can do B, he is much more willing to accept it without issue. Doesn't always work but the vast majority of the time it does.

The other parents can go get bent.

(Pressing ctrl fixes the italics bug I think)

We always explain things to him FSeven, whether or not he comprehends it is another story. Our daycare provider has suggested we come up with a picture board which contains pictures of her house and other things to help smooth transitions from one activity to the next, I believe it's called visual scheduling.

Yesterday was quite hard on my wife, I think things are coming to a head. She's finally accepting what we've known in our hearts for a long time, and to see him struggle in that environment was just the straw on the camels back. When she was doing her training for Occupational Therapy she did some work with Autistic kids, so she knows what is going on. I think we get fooled, because he can be so "normal" when in the comfort of our home and with familiar people. It's situations like the gymnastics where he really demonstrates the troubles he has.

We've contacted our family doctor to see about speeding up our pediatrician consult, and have looked at private OT assessment. We really just need this diagnoses so we can start accessing some of the publicly funded programs.

I tend to deal with things like this by absorbing as much information as possible. I've got about 3 or 4 kindle books I'm ready to order.

Also, what are people's thoughts on the whole Gluten Free - Autism connection? As a medical professional I'm instantly a bit skeptical, but am totally open to anything which might help my little guy.

Sorry for my rambling, I'm not the best at putting my thoughts into words. Also, every time I try to capitalize an I, it turns to italics on this board!

El-Producto wrote:

My wife had a particularly rough evening tonight. She took Owen to Mom's and Tots gymnastics, and it didn't go so well.

Really heartbreaking, and I wasn't even there.

Unfortunately, we know this feeling all too well (minus the eventually figuring things out part). I have about given up on trying to involve him in most all "normal" structured kids' activities as a result. My wife still tries something like this from time to time and it always leads to severe disappointment and depression. We're better off just sticking around other special needs kids and parents at this point.

Of course his language remains minimal, so he couldn't understand any instructions or explanations of what is expected. So far he has not taken to visual communication either (PECS, visual schedule).

I'll post my thoughts on the gluten issue later. I've done a fair bit of reading on it, but haven't tried it.

gewy wrote:
El-Producto wrote:

My wife had a particularly rough evening tonight. She took Owen to Mom's and Tots gymnastics, and it didn't go so well.

Really heartbreaking, and I wasn't even there.

Unfortunately, we know this feeling all too well (minus the eventually figuring things out part).

Trust me, when I say figuring things out.. I don't mean he starting participating like all the other kids.

Cool. My first double post. Now I feel like I'm part of the club.

Regarding the gluten free/casein free diet...

There are tons of anecdotal reports of it working obviously and some people are extremely passionate about it. I put very little stock in this though. It's way too easily obscured by placebo effect and other variables. In fact, the level of conviction some people have makes me even more skeptical if anything.

There are only a very few well designed studies out there that take these issues into account (placebo-controlled, randomized, blinded). They have as near as I can tell shown no significant difference between control and treatment (GFCF) diet. These studies are hard to conduct though and have only a very small number of successful participants. Also they only last a few weeks, and many argue that it can take months for the diet to have an effect.

On the other hand there are some studies that do suggest some benefit, but they typically have study designs that can't really account for the possibility of bias. There was a recent study that showed higher rates of antibodies to gluten among children with autism and other studies that suggest there may be something to the theoretical link but don't really assess if the diet helps or doesn't.

The TL;DR version is the jury is still out. I can't imagine that the diet is universally helpful to be honest, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were at least slightly helpful for a subset of kids with autism. Also wouldn't surprise me if it was complete bunk though.

We haven't tried it with our son because it would really take away all of the foods he consistently eats besides fruit and yogurt. He's skinny enough as it is. Sometimes I wonder if we should try it though, but it just seems too daunting.

I wondered about it too. One of the problems we have with Owen is, he's a VERY picky eater. He will go stretches where all he will eat are crackers and milk. Thankfully, he does love most fruit.. and he usually like pasta and pizza. We make a special tomato sauce for him which has tons of veggies in it, that we grind up in the food processor.

We also have been giving him Carnation Instant Breakfast with his milk which is basically a meal replacement. He loves that.

Basically what Gewy said about GFCF. I have a lit review I give out to parents but can't find the link right now. Basically if you google "gfcf literature review" you'll find several comprehensive articles on the subject.

And while it is perfectly normal for children to not join circle times in the beginnings, I certainly hear your wife's and your concerns that something might be off about it. Visual scheduling works very well when implemented correctly; are you guys accessing any sort of support where someone can teach you the way to do these things? Visual schedules are a little easier than PECS but still have a specific format, it's more than putting pictures on a board and expecting them to understand immediately. If they have language (even if only receptive (what they understand, which is generally higher than expressive (what they say))) social stories can be helpful as well if they can understand sequencing (do they get mad if you skip a page in a known story?).

PECS in particular has to be implemented and taught by someone trained to do so. The local school is constantly frustrated by getting kids when they turn 3 who have to relearn PECS because people thought it was just pointing to pictures. Not that there's anything wrong with a basic picture exchange like that and in fact it can be a very good bridge to language (much like signing) but for fully nonverbal kiddos it's best to get someone trained.

FSeven wrote:

The other parents can go get bent.

+1

Unfortunately that embarrassment is oftentimes one of the most difficult things for parents, particularly when just beginning to accept the difference their kiddo is showing. I really wish you and your wife the best El-producto. This is not an easy process at all. If you can't get someone who can help you coming out to the house (like EI) and helping you guys process you might also consider talking to just a counselor to help you process everything you're going through. It's normal to want to only help your child and put all your energy into that, but you'll never be able to really help unless you and your wife are at peace too. Le us know if we can help in any way.

FSeven wrote:

Did you prep him for the way things were going to proceed, El? My wife and I have found that when we describe a process to our son: Ok, after you do A then you can do B, he is much more willing to accept it without issue. Doesn't always work but the vast majority of the time it does.

The other parents can go get bent.

My experience too - telling him what to expect helps, but like you said in a later post, it doesn't mean he's able to control his impulses in the moment. So true about the other parents - they have no idea.

I hope you're able to get the assessment soon. It's helped us a lot emotionally to have it.

gewy, thanks for the info about GFCF. We've been told about that diet too, but our son's like El-Producto's - very picky. I think about the consequences of implementing it: I don't want to be anywhere near my son when he hears he's not able to have mac and cheese.

In case you didn't see it last night on the Daily Show, http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-epi..., the interview included what appears to be a fascinating book that may have some helpful insights:

http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Jump-si...

Feeling particularly close to my little guy as of late.. so I thought I'd put this here.

IMAGE(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QZRKjYjnpDI/UjSO-PPohSI/AAAAAAAACZk/CK1UXQi9aj8/w1113-h835-no/IMG_20130914_115203.jpg)

Handsome little dude.

Reminds me of what my wife says about our son. She says being as handsome as he is is naturally going to attract girls but his disinterested attitude is going to make them crazy.