Does this sound like Autism ? my DD
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| Thu, 09-22-2005 - 8:40pm |
Hi everyone!
I have a DD who is 23 months. She is in the birth to 3 program for a speech delay - or so they think. She has about 60 words or so - and can only occasionally put 2 words together - like ' more juice ' or ' want this' ' ready go' - thats about it.
She is a great sleeper, no allergies, is very smiley , never whines, and is generally very happy. She likes to be around us - follows us from room to room - likes toplay withus - loves peek a boo still, but will play alone for 15 minutes - will aso watch an entire 30 min video.
Mind you - she did not speak a word till she was about 17 months. My other DD was speaking in sentences when she was 20 months.
She is pretty easy going - until she doesn't get her way, then she does the normal 2 minute tantrum thing. She did not point till about a month ago - she can only name about 5 body parts - she can count to 10, no ABC's - she does not always answer to her name - maybe about %80 of the time. She likes to play alone - wont really let me read to her she wants to be the one turning the pages - she does not like to sit and listen to me. She definetly does NOT understand everything we say - some, but not all ( her teachers think she has a receptive language delay. She loves to play tag and hide and seek - but will not sit down with my other DD ( 4) and have a tea party or anything like that. She has no texture issues - but she is picky in what she will eat. She always comes to me whenshe is hurt - and wants a hug. When I scold her - she gets upset - and then wants a hug, she gets so sad when I scold her, my other DD never cared when I was upset - lol.
She loves water, the jungle gym and plays correctly with all her toys - does pretend play ( brusing her dolls teeth, feeding her a bottle, etc...) she has no ' strange' for lack of a better word things that she does - except she LOVES to see her reflection. She does not say mama - but knows who I am - and says 'dada all day to my DH. She doesn't seem to really play with other kids - she will immitate what they do - and follow them - but will not really engage them, but she will go up to them and say HI - and she always engages adults who are NOT paying attention to her - she seems to like attention. She totally ignores me sometimes - and her teacher sometimes when she is here. She just runs off to do her own thing. She does not bring me toys - unless she can't figure one out. She loves to have people clap for her - when she does something ( like go down a slide) and she then says ' taaa- daaaa ' with her hands up in the air. She seems to understand the word NO - and usually listens after I say it 3 times or so - lol.
She likes to try to sing - and loves finger play ( like itsy bitsy spider - etc)
She cant (or wont) not really follow directions. Her teacher thinks she can - but just wont, like a compliance issue. I don't know. She is very affectionate ( most of the time) but does not like to be hugged or kissed too long - unless it's on her terms - and she is ready for it.
I've been obsessing on this for about 1 year now - I can't stop worrying about her. My Dh has a cousin with Aspergers - very high functioning.
I have an appt with ped. neur. in a month - I've had it for 6 months - long wait I guess, I'm just wondering what red flags I should really be looking for. I've done all the on-line tests for her - and she only has like 2 of the 12 or so things they list as 'markers'. What do you all think? What should I be looking for??
thanks SO much in advance
btw - I made this appt with the ped neur 7 months ago - now, that appt is when she is usually napping - so she will be a mess for sure - how is he going to get a good pix of her if she is ' off ' ??
Beth
Edited 9/22/2005 8:46 pm ET ET by lovenkids
Edited 9/22/2005 9:44 pm ET ET by lovenkids

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hi and welcome,
i really didn't find any red flags in the description of your daughter that says autism. she sounds like she is doing pretty well with a little delay. she sounds like she has some pretty good interactions with family and peers. enjoying her reflections is good, i think little ones on the spectrum have a hard time with that one.
red flags could be...
avoiding eye contact
obsessions with certain things like lining up or intense interest in one or two things
toe walking/arm flapping
sensory issues
try not to worry too much. sounds like you are doing everything for her regardless of the final outcome.
valerie
Beth,
Hello and welcome to the board. My recurring thought reading your post was "Have you had her hearing tested?" It sounds like she has an expressive/receptive language delay, but as Val said, no real red flags for Autism. (not that I'm an expert).
I think you should go ahead with the neurologist appt, although IMO an pediatric neuropsychologist or a developmental pediatrician may provide more insights than a neurologist. Neurologists can rule out things like seizures or brain defects but in my experience have not added a huge amount of value pertaining to purely developmental issues.
Also explore the hearing thing carefully. There could potentially be two areas to look at: Hearing: i.e. has she always had good hearing in both ears? is the there a history of ear infections? etc etc.
The other thing is auditory processing -which is hard (impossible) to really test in one so young. AP issues means that there may be nothing wrong with the physical hearing, but the brain does not process the input in a standard way; for example it may not be able to filter out background noice to concentrate on a voice. AP issues can impact the ability to *listen*, which is evey bit as important as *hearing*.
Observe her under different conditions. Does she seem to be able to listen or understand better if there is no background noise (no music, radio, TV, fans, water or devices running), Do you ever observe her listening to something you cannot hear, or have tuned out? Does she get very distracted or overloaded by noise or in noisy environments? Do you ever catch her tuned into the wrong conversation or auditory input? (e.g. listening to a another mom in the supermarket or to dog bark outside when you are trying to speak to her).
If any of this sounds familiar, read up on Auditory Processing Disorders (APDs) and Central Auditory Pocessing Disorder (CAPD).
HTH and good luck.
-Paula
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
HI -
Thanks to all who responded.
We did have her hearing tested at 20 months - it was kind of a nightmare - she was scared, but she did well overall - no hearing problems.
The teacher mentioned maybe an Auditory probelms - but eh only time she does not tune into me is when that damn TV is on - lol, other than that - when I say her name, she responds, no matter what is going on, noises do not seem to bother her - she jumps if she hears an unexpecte loud noise - but thats about it.
Today is our birth to 3 class - we go one a week, (and she has a teacher that comes once a week) she loves it other than circle time - she HATES to have to sit in a circle, but I think it's cause they leave all the toys out - you know? She wants to keep playing. They said today - they'd put all the toys away - that way she can wander around - but will have nothing to play with - we'll see
thanks again
any other input would be very much appreciated : )
I meant to ask in the last post: how flexible is she? Will she freak out (say) if you cut her sandwich into squares, rather than triangles (or vice-versa). Do changes in routine bother her? Has she ever had an OT evaluation for sensory issues?
Read up on Specific Language Impairment, which I think is the term they use if the brain's primary language center is not working as it should (-Suzi?). The good news is there is a backup language center on the other side of the brain, and I believe there are specific therapies designed to help.
Now I *do* recommend a neuropsych eval.
Good luck,
-Paula
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
Ya know gals, there was one red flag. She only started pointing a month ago and she is nearly 2.
It is awfully hard to tell via internet. Her language sounds a bit like my daughters at that age but actually more advanced than hers was. She also didn't speak until about 17 months or walk for that matter, had little receptive language, and I think only maybe 10 words unless you count labelling letters and colors which she used for her own obsession. She had 1 phrase (all done) if I remember but it was the same one and it echo'ed us basically.
What was different was that she had obsessions, didn't play with other kids, didn't play with toys, was very rigid and tantrumed frequently. In fact, she was in daycare at the time and they kept holding her back with the younger kids. When they did any group things like circle time she hid under the easel.
It is hard to say what could be the cause of your dd's language delay. I will say that now Cait talks my ear off. Her problems with language that continue are typical aspie type ones.
I think it is worth keeping an eye on but she does seem to have loads of strengths going for her and very few autistic signs. It can be hard to tell the mild end of the spectrum at a young age though so keep an eye out just incase, but regardless you are doing all the right things anyway.
She sounds like just a lovely young girl.
Renee
hi,
changes in her routine never bother her - she is very flexible, she would always point in a book - not not at things till a month ago they say her gross and fine moter skill are on the advanced side - she walked at 11 months - waved bye-bye by 10 months -
she is really very easy going - but if I say NO - she gets pretty mad, but gets over it in about a minute and moves one
ok, well as a comparison, if my daughter got mad at that age you were in for a minimum of 30 minutes and sometimes hours of a tantrum. You could even give into what she wanted and she would still tantrum because seh was so far gone.
Most tantrums weren't over no, they were over changes or misunderstanding/problems with communication.
Conversly when not tantruming she was very sweet but very quiet (as a baby and toddler) but not to into interaction unless she was obsessing on me telling her what letter something was or what color. She would also make me sit and look at the same books over and over with her.
When she was just about 2 I have on video her playing bubbles with us. I video'd it because it was the first time she did something like that. She also played dolls for a while. It was a day of rare clarity for Cait and it didn't happen after that again for a long time no matter how hard we tried. We thought perhaps she mastered it and then lost interest. We video'd it because it was such a huge new step. Thing is we didn't realize how far off normal that was because we worked with severely delayed children and adults and she was our first. Everything we were concerned about we were told we were just reading into things because of our jobs.
Cait is considered very high functioning and was mainstreamed until she went into a special middle school program. In fact it took us years to get anyone to listen to us at that age and years to get a correct diagnosis. Even when seh was diagnosed PDD at 4 we were told that it may be just a language problem and her social skills should catch up when her language did. Her social skills didn't and now she is diagnosed Aspergers.
Renee
he never really thows real tantrums or fits - she will just lay down and kick for a minute or so if she is not getting her way. It's always over me saying NO to something.
just to clarify - no matter what my DD has or doesn't - she is the light of my life - and is a real sweetie, we love her topieces - just want tomake sure I am doing the most I can for her and not letting precious time slip by .........
My gut feeling is she has some sort of recepetive language delay - she is using lots more wors - so her teachers are no too wrorried about her expressive language - she canget her point across and let us know what she wnats when she wnats it - but it was slow getting to this point for sure.
my friends son was just diagnosed at 2 as having PDD - NOS, but she said it was not autism - itsn't it one in the same or am I wasy off?
PDD-NOS- is it autism or not. Hmmm, well that is a tough one to explain but I will try.
First, PDD-NOS is considered one of the autism spectrum disorders but a kid can be PDD-NOS without being autistic. In fact PDD-NOS is not full autism. But in short hand folks will often say autistic, mild autism, or atypical autism for PDD-NOS because when you say PDD-NOS most people just look at you funny. Autism they know.
PDD-NOS, Autism and Asperger's all fall under the same main heading in the diagnostic manual called Pervasive developmental disorders. Retts Syndrome and childhood degenerative disorder fall under them as well.
PDD-NOS is diagnosed when a child meets a significant amount of criteria under this umbrella category but do not meet the full criteria for a more specific pervasive developmental disorder. PDD-NOS can range from very mild like my youngest son who has some quirks on the spectrum and enough that it makes life tough but he does not appear to be autistic at all. In fact I would say he is missing some of the main indicators of autism. Or it can be severe where the child is significantly delayed but doesn't have enough autistic specific symptoms to be considered full autism. It often refers to kids who would totally meet the criteria for Aspergers if not for a bit of a language delay. There is alot of debate over whether kids like that are PDD-NOS, AS or High functioning autistic. That is my oldest daughter.
So while PDD-NOS is not "autism" it is an autism spectrum disorder that ranges significantly in severity. There are some with PDD-NOS who are definitely autism spectrum and thus autism is a good descriptor, there are others that are on the border and it is not. For instance, the criteria for PDD-NOS does fit my youngest but I would be reluctant to say he was on the autism spectrum.
If you want more info on it the diagnostic criteria is still posted on the boards website which should be linked above.
Renee
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