Special Needs
ccollins08
member
Autism or Apraxia
ccollins08
member
My son in 28 months. He has been going to a special preschool for speech, O.T. and I'm requesting P.T. He has been in early intervention since 18 months. My son is severely delayed in speech. He says about 30 words, and a couple of phrases, lots of Jibberish, and the words he does say can be very hard to understand. His speech therapist thinks it is more a motor delay, possibly Apraxia. We took him to a neurolgist last year around when he was 20 months and he deemed him as not Autistic. He has great eye contact, very personable. He plays with his peers the ones he knows, but has a hard time adjusting to new children. He has an extremely difficult time listening to directions, and tantrums any time he doesn't get what he wants. What is leaning me towards being on the spectrum is his obsession with opening and closing any door, (cabinets, toys, room doors, sliding glass door, any door) He is obsessed and will do it non stop, when go to people's houses or in our own house. We have locks on the doors in our house so he can't do it. He also has an obsession with turning lights on and off.. Toe walks about 10 percent of the time. Any thoughts and past experiences would be much appreciated. (FYI, I have been a teacher working with middle school autistic students for 7 years)
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Re: Autism or Apraxia
FWIW, DS1 was diagnosed with autism at 30 months old. He started ABA therapy 4.5 months later. He has been in it for 9 months and his obsessions have calmed down some. He is still interested in lights and doors but doesn't often obsess over them and can be deterred much more easily now. DS1 never played with his peers, though. It is great that your son does! He may not be autistic (I'm having trouble remembering the exact social criteria) but he might benefit from some different therapy.
At 2.5 we really weren't sure. She had good eye contact and was social but she also had a lot of fears and things just seemed off. She was late to point and she stood out as being different from her peers. We had her assessed and we were told it was just the apraxia/motor planning.
She will be 4 next month and things look much clearer now. She has friends, tells stories, asks and answers questions, and she has matured greatly. Her motor planning issues are still apparent when learning new things but she seems very typical now. Because of her history I am keeping a close eye on things but am no longer overly worried.
Good luck! It may just be too soon for you to know.
DS2 (now nearly 6 years old) was diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech. He had zero words at 18 months which is when we started speech therapy. I suspect he had zero words at 28 months. I remember his second birthday and I'm almost certain he couldn't say anything let alone 30 words or any phrases. We attended twice-weekly sessions with 2 different speech therapists for over 2 years (one supplied through the public system and one private therapist). Now, with the exception of some difficulty with the "L" and "R" sounds (we still work on those), his speech is on par with his peers. He is now attending French immersion school full time and is doing very well.
We never experienced tantrums at all despite his inability to make words. He still communicated effectively and obviously understood us as well. I remember observing him watching an interactive video for children which was geared towards getting the child to mimic the mouth movements on screen. One exercise was to stick out your tongue and move it from the left side of your mouth to the right side of your mouth. DS pushed his chin up and moved his head side to side, like you might see Stevie Wonder do. It was a very telling moment for me.
Having said that, he too had some behaviours that were worrying to me, particularly between the ages of 1.5 and 3 years of age. Opening and closing doors, turning light switches on and off were pastimes he would often engage in. He also was very good at entertaining himself with his toys rather than play with other children. He didn't always respond when you called his name though his hearing checked out fine. He would walk away on his own without concern. But on its own, the doors and light switch interest faded and as he got older he was more apt to seek out kids to play with. His 'elopement' phase resolved as well. However, to this day, if he his focused on something he either legitimately doesn't hear when he's being called or can actively choose to ignore it. I have had several discussions with his DP on this trait but the DP is not concerned. In his words, it may serve as a strength later on, the ability to focus on an activity and block out distractions. Time will tell.
I was highly anxious for that couple of years and even had a psychologist (that was evaluating DS) suggest that I back off and seek help for my anxiety as it was obviously affecting me and most likely rubbing off on DS. It was a tough period of time for me. What I tried to focus on instead was being productive in addressing the known deficits. I knew he had a speech delay so we worked on that. We stayed on top of his well visits with his GP, saw a pediatrician at regular intervals and had child psychologist evaluations over a period of 18 months or so.
Best of luck. I know its tough.