Intro and questions-2 yr old ASD

veggieroll

Hello. My son turned two last month and has an appointment to be diagnosed in December. He's in speech therapy and occupational once a week through our EI program. He also has been seeing a speech therapist twice a week at a private center, but last week she discussed him seeing an OT there instead of her because she thinks he needs that more. He's been in both programs for about nine months.

He's almost completely non-verbal. No pointing or signing. Communication is bringing us to places to get things for him like the kitchen for food or handing us an empty cup to refill. For speech, it seems like whenever he picks up a word, he loses it pretty quickly. He has the word "Go" when prompted ("Ready, Set, ...") and I'm trying to get him to keep it right now.

I have an ADHD dx and it makes me a little sad that he may have to find ways to deal with things like I had to. But then, I didn't have nearly the amount of therapy that he's already had, so that keeps me hopeful.

Questions:

-How can you tell how functioning a toddler is going to be in the future? Is this something that a developmental pedi would be able to tell you or more only time will tell?

-What will happen after he has the dx? I keep hearing the answer that it'll open more doors for him, but right now he's already in therapy four days a week (plus one day of "social therapy"). Would this be more important in the future with the school system or something like that? I think he's too young for ABA, so I'm not really sure what other therapy this could open up.

-I'm not sure I even understand what autism is. Can a child grow out of the dx with enough therapy and time like some do with ADHD?

-DS has no stranger danger and he's very friendly. He really loves other kids (he's an only child). During play times at the park and library, he'll sometimes run up to other kids and give them hugs especially when we first get there. Most kids are cool with it and think he's cute, but occasionally a parent or kid freaks out about it and that normally ends with DS being hit or pushed down by the other kid and then DS goes into meltdown mode. I'm not even sure how to correct this behavior in him. I always apologize to the parents and try to explain the friendliness. But he understands very little as is. He knows what "no" means and I've tried to use that, but I don't think he understands what I'm telling him not to do. Any experience or ideas of things I can try? I think that maybe it's a phase, but he's been doing it for a while.

-Is it better to see a neurologist, developmental pediatrician, or a psychiatrist for diagnosing? His appointment is for a psychiatrist. And did you get a second opinion with your LO? I've been told several times that I need to make sure I get an opinion from two different types of doctors.

I'll probably have even more questions the closer we get to getting his dx, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks ladies!

bumpuser511563

Welcome to our board.

It sounds like you have all the right steps in helping your DS.

I would explore getting appointments with the developmental pedi and neurologist if you have those available where you live for a second or even a third evaluation. The wait could be months out to be seen.

I don't know what the future holds for DS and he is 5. I only worry of what DH and I are advocating that DS gets all the therapies he needs now. I worry of today. The future is in the back of my mind.

veggieroll

That's a good point! I didn't even think about the wait list. He was on this one for about six months.

hopecounts

not to young for ABA and I would recommend doing your research into your ABA options now since many of the best providers have waitlists so getting him on the list now will enable him to start sooner. Many ABA providers use VB-Mapp which covers the normal development milestones from birth so they eval the child and start with where they are at, building up the foundation of speech and behavior until they are as close to age appropriate as possible continuing to work on the skills until it ends at age 4 (age when most speech behavior is set). DD started at 3 and I wish we had started sooner, she has made amazing progress and it has been the key to unlocking her speech and helping her socially and behaviorally. That said something like Floortime is another therapy approach but with a non-verbal child I'd be more inclined to go with ABA to get the language skills worked on. DD went from non-verbal to verbal in a year of ABA.

kcisthebombdotcom

Welcome! I have ADHD and have a child with autism. To answer your questions I would get a referral to a developmental pedi. Kids can sometime "grow out" of autism but it is very rare. You will not be able to tell functioning by how your child is now. I think maybe by middle/high school you would have an idea. A dx would help you with more long term planning and aba if you wanted it. If you chose not to go the aba route your therapy would most likely etay the same for the time being. In terms of socially inappropriate behavior all you can really do is correct it in the moment. Sadly dd is nearly four and this is one area we have not seen improvement in.

Junebug060609

Welcome. 

Auntie and the others covered a lot of what I was going to say, so I'll mostly just welcome you to the board.

My 3 year old DS has an ASD diagnosis, he got it last January when he was about 28 months.  We were expecting the dx though since at 21 months we were told that he likely had autism.  It's a hard pill to swallow, even when you suspect it's coming. 

FWIW, my 3 year old is in ABA now and he started when he was about 2.5.  It seems to be helping, though perhaps not as much as his SN's preschool (through the school system, he wouldn't have qualified for it without the dx so that's the type of thing getting a dx can gain you). 

His initial eval, the one with a provisional dx, was with a developmental psych.  The official dx came from, and he currently sees, a developmental pedi.  He also has a speech therapist, ABA, and is in school 15 hours a week.  To our knowledge, he's never had seizures, so no neuro as of yet.

veggieroll

AA0417 said:

One of auntie's book recommendations had a nice chart that roughly laid out what types of therapies are better fits at various skill levels, but I don't recall which book; maybe she will know which I am talking about (I read numerous books back to back during that time).

I can't figure out tagging, but I'd love to know what book this is. I'm just starting to look into books about autism.

Thank you for the welcome. I'm looking forward to posting here.