Autistic tendencies

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-01-2005
Autistic tendencies
1
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 11:22am

I have three children and have posted on a few boards now looking for advice, I have been given some good advice but today there has been an incident which has brought me here, I think I have actually posted once on here about my little girl.

Both my boys (identical twins) age 9 have chronic tic disorders which I think is more tourettes after having both vocal and motor tics over the last 5 yrs, one of the twins is having a few issues with behaviour which we are coping with but is at times hard especailly after school, the other twin and the one I came here for has issues with sounds they started when he was about 5 before this he had moderate hearing loss due to glue ear but as soon as his ears were sorted out he grew more and more sensitive to sounds, such as brushing mainly at that time it was things like roadsweepers he would freeze and cover his ears as if in pain at the sound of them, anyway this last few months he has been finding sounds harder to deal with, I have never spoken to his teachers as it hasnt effected him at school but today there was an episode where his teacher was just writing on a white pad and Christopher started crying and covering his ears up as if in pain it turned out he couldnt deal with the noise, at the moment he cant cope with any type of brushing like teeth, hair, scrubbing brush, brushing the floor, road sweepers, people writing or colouring the list goes on, the teachers sent him home after this episode because from that the noise in the dinner hall just lead to him feeling so bad that he said he just wanted to sit in a room on his own with no noise, he was fine after we got home but I spoke to his head teacher who feels both twins and also my four yr old who has a few issues with adapting to new things, licking things, the odd other type of tics, he says they all need a thorough assessment and is going to try and help us get the support, however he says in this day and age it is difficult because so many kids are waiting, he also brought up autistic tendencies and said that maybe Christopher could have some very mild form of autism due to his reaction to the noises, just wanted others opinions on this?

Thanks in advance
Zoe

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 1:01pm

Hi,

Well, first of all the auditory problems would indicate sensory integration disorder more than autism. Sure most or many autistics will have sensory integration problems and auditory sensitivity being a big one, it is not what diagnosis autism. Heck, I would venture to guess that many kids with tourettes would have sensory issues as well. Sensory issues tend to go hand in hand with lots of neurological conditions including ADHD, OCD, tourette's, Aspergers, autism, etc. I wouldn't even consider just auditory sensitivity an autistic tendancy. I would consider it an auditory problem and I would check into auditory processing and sensory integration disorder.

However, if he has other symptoms of autistic type stuff you will want to check into it. My husband does a training on autism and he speaks of the CBS of autism.

C - Communication. In it's core autism in all forms is a social communication disorder. Even kids with Aspergers and high functioning forms of autism will have a hard time with communicating particularly with peers. Communication problems may be as slight as not understanding social cues and nuances as well as not understanding figures of speech and idioms. Or it can be as severe as a child who is non-verbal and cannot follow 1 step directions.

B- Behavior - Frequently kids with ASD's will at least have behavioral differences and many have behavioral problems. This can be perhaps a hard time with transitions so they may be a bit non-compliant to change from one activity to another. It may be rigidity and insisting on things being the same. Or they may have severe behavioral problems as well. Also, I believe my husband talks about some kids having just odd behaviors. Not naughty behaviors but things that look odd to the general public and our kids wouldn't even notice that they should stop like self stimulatory behaviors is a biggie. Some kids can appear very rude even if they don't mean to be. Again behavioral differences can range from very mild to very severe.

S- Social skills - This is a big bugaboo with ASD kids. They just don't know how to play with thier peers appropriately. There are basically a couple kinds of social problems. There is the classic withdrawn kid who doesn't want to socialize all that much. Maybe they do with family or certain known people but otherwise tend to withdraw. And then there is the sometimes more frequent "Active but odd" or those that try to socialize but just don't get it naturally. They may be very outgoing to the point of driving others nuts. Or they may be a mix of both. In many ways my kids are a mix of both depending on the circumstance but they most definitely do not understand the social interactions of the neurotypical.

There is also a link here for the diagnostic criteria for autism, Asperger's and PDD-NOS. I believe the "community website" is still listed. If not go to www.asdrendrewolf.org and click on the "Autism" tab at the top. The diagnostic criteria are there as well.

Renee

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