QUESTION!

Any child can regress,at any time.I still have slip backs,and I am under a cognative therapist.

sitting worrying will not help matters and not all children on the spectrum will regress.

Autism is always one step forward and three back anyway.

cross that bridge when it comes.

I know it must be hard for you but worrying about something that has not happened is needless though I know its neccassary .

love shell xxxxx

It is entirely possible for our kids to regress. But it is also possible for high-functioning autistic kids to make significant strides forward and do many normal things. The fact that your son is looking you in the eye is a good sign; many autistic kids have trouble doing that even when they do learn how to talk. And yes - they most definitely can learn to talk. (My son never stops!)

Is your son receiving any services? My advice would be to look for an early intervetion program, if you have not already done so. My son was diagnosed at age 3 but began receiving services for speech and OT at age 2. I'll never forget one of the first things his speech therapist said to us: "There are 168 hours in a week, and I see your child for one of them. The biggest part of my job is to make sure that you know how to keep this going for the other 167." I think that's some of the best advice that I've ever received. It is likely that your son will always be autistic and have those symptoms, but if you find out what therapies work best and follow through with them at home, you can maximize his chances at being able to do many things.

Good advice from Shell, too - there's no point in worrying about everything now. Just cross each bridge when you come to it. Good luck, and keep your positive attitude!

Heather

What is your son's name?

When does your son tend to tantrum? Try to keep documentation of this and see if you can find triggers. Many children with Autism tantrum when they have to transition to a new activity without sufficient warning. Another one is when a routine is changed.

A great way to help with this is through the use of a picture schedule. You can make one of your own using pictures from a magazine or a website. You can take pictures and use those. You can buy a program like BoardMaker to do the same thing.

I will try to attach or send an example, since my picture schedule did not copy over.

Wake Up

Eat Breakfast

Brush Teeth

Get Dressed

Story Time

Play Time

Go to Park

Nap Time

Heather

I feel your pain! My son just turned 3......last year at this time(when he was only 2) my son was not talking...all he said was nanno. I felt so hopeless. When the Early interventionist came to work with him she never gave me hope when I asked him about his future......which was always on my mind (& still is) Thankfully a year later I can say that I have more hope than I did then. My son talks(more words than I can count) he gets more creative and interactive each day. He recently started preschool(through the local school district) and is doing really well. I know that you don't have a formal diagnosis....but I strongly recommend that you act as if your son already is... that's the only way you can get him the best & earliest help. I honestly never had a formal diagnosis for my son. I didn't want to know, because if I knew for sure(even though I knew in my gut) I would just want to die. I took action regardless...as if he was. I took him to a DAN Dr. put him on the GFCF diet, I have cranial sacral therapy done regularly....most importantly for me is I pray all the time for a healing..... because anything is possible with God! I recently saw a show on Oprah...a man was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer he said that factually there is 20% black, 20% white & 60% grey....... he chose to see the grey as part of the white.... and I feel the same way about my son. I have to believe that he will overcome this. He is my angel. I can't wish for anything else in this world than for him to have a future full of success and hope! I pray for that for you son too! If you want to pray together sometime I would love to!

Take care! God Bless!

When my son tantrums and I feel like I cannot do anything to help him (and the tears well up inside) I just sit down, scoop him up and hug, rock and quietly talk to him. At that moment in time, when I have no idea how to help him, I know that what I can do is show and tell him that I love him through the actions. If there is nothing more that I can provide, I can definately provide that and sometimes, that is all that my son needs.

Hbudnik,

I love what your child's therapist told you!!!! I wish more service providers thought that way. I have fought and fought some of the twins providers, for the past 6 months, to get it through their thick heads that I want to know what and how they do things so that I can carry it over at home. They just look at me with confusion and then "forget" to tell me what I wanted to know.

I think I am going to quote that therapist in my son's communication logs for next school year. Maybe that will get through some of their thick skulls.

As for wondering if my 3 1/2-year-old twins or 1 1/2 year-old are going to lead independent lives, well, I have no idea but that is what we are striving for, for and with, them by providing all of the things that we possibly can and by being active in their therapies and education.

I look at it this way, when I was born my parents had all of the same typical hopes and dreams that any parent has for their child. They never once thought about if i was going to grow up and become independant, they just provided food, clothing, shelter, education and medical support that they could. In the end, I am now independant with children of my own.

Somewhere along the way, I could have been in an accident that could have left me paralyzed or worse, a vegetable. Did my parents think about that? No.

So, my children were born neurologically "paralyzed" (hang in there with the analogy) which shattered my "typical" parental hopes and dreams. Does that mean that my children cannot learn to cope with or even overcome their disability? Nope, it just means that they have a great number of years in which to do it. It also means that they are at an advantage for learning coping skills because they do not know a life different from the one that they have so they cannot be depressed over how things "used to be".

In addition, children are "sponges" which means that they can absorb and be molded into whomever they are going to become. Think of the children who have terrible grand-mal seizures that require half of their brain to be removed. They grow up to lead "normal" independant lives. It is all because of how "plastic" their little bodies are at this stage.

So, with all of that said (sorry, didn't mean to write a novel) hang in there. We are all in this group for similar reasons and we are all going to spend the next years helping each other as our children grow into the members of society that they are going to become. Who knows, one of our children (Hbudnik's, Proudmother's, Spectrummum's, Heartfeltcompassion's, Kristi123's, Jackson5mom's, Kerribear's or mine) could become the next Albert Einstein.....