What do you recommend?

Kendrav4

We met with the psychologist and she said she was really on the fence about diagnosing my son with autism. He met 5 out of the requires 6 criteria for autism. She said she was really leaning towards a diagnosis but after talking to his pediatrician she is going to reevaluate him again in 6 months. For now, he is diagnosed with global develemental delay and is at risk for developing autism. She recommended starting with speech therapy at this point. Are there any books or resources that you can recommend to help me come up with different activities to do with him at home? She did tell me to work on getting him to imitate me, but that's pretty much it.

If you have an LO with autism, what do you do with them at home?

Also, any and all advice is welcome. I am just proceeding like he has autism bc he is so close, so I want to learn as much as possible so that I can help him as much as possible

Thanks in advance!

macchiatto

Sorry you're in limbo. My son is also "at risk for autism." My devel pedi recommended Navigating the Social World to me but Auntie recommended Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking curricula. I'm not sure if your little guy is old enough for either of those yet though? Hopefully your ST will have a lot of good suggestions as well. Is he in Early Intervention or getting any other therapies as well?

Micelle78

How old is you son and how severe are the delays? 

My son is not actually diagnosed with autism but we have been in various private therapies.  He currently gets speech, vision, and OT.  I can be as specific as you want.  I have tried a ton of speech activities and motor activities.  Just let me know what is helpful and I will make you a list!

Kendrav4

My son will be 2 in November. She didn't say exactly how severe the delays are...I would say he is where an average 13 month old. I called the school today and they will be be starting him in an early intervention program and hell be starting speech therapy. The speech therapist also recommended a social development group that starts in the fall, so we will do that also.

Michelle78 I'm not even sure where to start. Maybe with some speech and social activities that I can do with him? And some imitation activities if you have any? I try to get him to repeat my motions but he doesn't show any interest right now. I'll take anything you are willing to give me

Micelle78

Ok, well I have to work early tomorrow (teacher here) but I have a 3 day weekend and I should be able to give you some ideas. I wish someone had pointed me the right way and I want to give you any ideas that might help. We first were really concerned right before my DS was 2. 

Does he say anything?  Even nouns yet?  DS had 5 words at 2: ba (ball), dada, mama, ca (car) and did not imitate me.  At the time, i was really really hoping he had an issue with his hearing.  His hearing tested normal and that was crushing because I knew that it meant he had something much more complicated going on.  We immediately got him into speech with a private SLP. Four months later we had the school district evaluate him (a PT, SLP, and OT as well as a services coordinator came to our house) received an "at risk for autism" from the assessment.  At that time he was 2.5 years old and scored more than one standard deviation low for speech and had the movement of a 15 month old.  Yes he could walk and run, but his body was about a year behind in development.  He did not have the coordination to drink out of a straw or use a spoon to feed himself and had a LOT of sensory issues around food and clothing.

I regret now that I did not look into the vision part sooner.  It was a huge contributor to his speech and motor development.  What threw me, is that he appeared to see fine.  It really takes a specialist to notice the little subtle things he was/wasn't doing.  Basically, my son has vision and hearing that are fine.  What is not fine, is that his brain does not communicate correctly with his eyes, body, and ears.  Thats super simplified, but a way to explain it.  All of your senses are so intertwined that they are very dependent on each other for normal development.  Vision can impact speech, motor skills can impact speech.  Its so overwhelming.

Ok that got really long!  I will email you a bullet list of everything I have done from age two to now this weekend.

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Kendrav4

Thank you for that information! My son has words, he says ball, blue, purple, yellow, momma, daddy, hi, and cereal, and banana but he only says cereal, hi and nana (banana) in context. The rest he only says if prompted. He seems to be doing on psychically, he walked late (17 months) and can climb and stuff, but he's not starting to help get himself dressed or anything. He doesn't follow directions at all (besides throw something away and shut the door) and acts like he doesn't understand me. He also has 0 interest in kids and is a huge wanderer. I'm trying to get him to engage/play with siblings and he just wanders away. I'm going to pm you my email if you wouldn't mind emailing me the information bc I don't know how to check pms from mobile lol

Kendrav4

McRib said:

I think my advice is always that of outlier but I think if a dx would get you ABA services then I would get it. I think the wait and see approach is bunk esp at this critical time.

We maxed out on EI services (OT and SLP) and had private speech 1x a week. We also did ABA for 25 hours a week. It was ridiculous but it did help my son.

Lastly, I'd look at what is going on with your son medically. There may a few things you can tweak that might help him greatly. For instance with my son, removing a few foods that he was intolerant of really worked. Supplementing iron since was deficient and Vit D also helped. A great resource for this is Dr. Bock's Healing the New Childhood Epidemics.

Good luck!

Thank you! I'm not familiar with ABA? How do you put in that many hours per weeks? I'm not even sure how we would do that because I work full time. Is that a service the psychologist would provide?

hopecounts

ABA = Applied Behavioral Analysis.

They use Discrete Trial Training to help children learn that do not do so in a typical way, very common approach in ASD treatment.
 It can cover everything from speech, self care (PTing for example), to social skills. 

DD is in a private ABA based preschool program 2 days a week now. She was receiving private ABA on an  outpatient basis fr 7-8 hours a week this past year (we don't have insurance coverage) 

Depending on what services are offered/available/etc you may be able to have it pushed in through EI at his daycare, or have a private ABA come to him at daycare. 

ABA quality can vary greatly, DD's was what I call ABA light it was really a blend of Floortime and ABA, her knew program is a little more structured but only because in between her DTT time she is doing social/school skills in a classroom with NT peers so she is getting more of the fun in that format rather then blended in. 

Kendrav4

Oh ok. We have early intervention coming out to meet with us sometime in the next week, and I will talk to them about that. I'll start researching progress here in our city and see what's offered