I don't get it
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| Wed, 01-17-2007 - 12:36am |
I am wondering if I am the only one on this one or if I might not be.
The kids are suddenly into homemovies and made videos in teh last 2 days (tried to load one on You tube to share but not cooperating).
Well as part of it they also got into watching the old videos of themselves. I was watching ones from when Mike was 2-3 years old and honest, I saw nearly nothing autistic on them. Now if you watch any videos from the last year or 2 you can definitely pick him out as different and his autism is usually more visable. I mean in one when he was 3 he answered a "who" question. It was halloween and I said "who are you dressed as" and he said "Batman". Now we may have practiced it but still, common.
Now there were a couple small things (one small episode of flapping, one where he wouldnt get messy, all around the same time) and a couple cut outs where I stopped videoing and you can guess that some issue came up. I know that there were issues from when he was newborn that you don't see on tape. Oh and You almost always hear his name called 2-3 times before he responds.
HOWEVER, there were tons of things he can't/won't do now. And tons of things he does now that he didn't do then. For instance, his voice and speech seem normal to me in the video. Now it is always like a stutter pace with odd inflections, monotone or robot voice. He ran pretty normal for a kid in the video and in one from a year ago and still now he often runs kind of sideways with one arm to his side and the other one swinging. That is starting to fade fortunately but it has been a while.
ANd here is the kicker that killed me. We were at a big halloween thing with a bazillion jumpers and My son was climbing and going on all of them with apparently no problem what so ever and I looked the picture of the calm mom with listening children. We could NEVER do that now. Ok, we may be just getting to the point where if he one of us 1:1 we could do it.
So is he getting worse? Is it just bad parenting at this point? WHAT THE .......!!!!!!
Ok, done now.
I gotta figure out how to get this tape onto digital and mix it with some video from now and take to the neuro and have her tell me WTF is up.
Renee


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Still obsessing and using this thread to process the thoughts, lol. Thanks for indulging me. Hard to organize them all coherently.
Still, though some changes can be attributed to extra stressors as he gets older some of it just doesn't make sense.
As Debbie said, I fully expected to see those video's and go "a ha, looked what I missed then". I know I did that with Cait. I wasn't expecting him to look so typical. I see and work with loads and loads of autistic children and there are certain mannerisms, movements, ways they use language, etc that give them away. Even the very mildest of ASD kids. There was some of it that was obviously missing in the video and I don't get it.
As a rule, kids with ASD progress as they get older. It is a developmental delay, not a regressive type syndrome in most cases. As such, some of these things just did NOT make sense to me.
1) He was able to participate in and do activities that now freak him out. The big halloween party at 3 1/2 I saw where they were going down all kinds of jumpers. Typically a young child with ASD may have a very hard time in that type of situation but get a bit better as they get older. Ones that do well you would expect them to continue to do fairly well though they may begin to have more social issues.
It does NOT make sense to me that he was able to participate in that crowded, crazy, overstimulating environement fairly well where as he cannot do so now. Heck, just watching Dave's basketball game yesterday sent him over the top alternating making weird noises and bouncing to hiding under his hood. And he was just sitting with me in a loud environment.
2) Stimming. In the whole video I saw him stim very rarely and he was 2-4 years old. Most young kids with ASD will stim more when younger and then less as they learn more skills /get older. Mike stims WAY more than he did then. He did do alot of sensory type activities when little and had HUGE sensory issues from day one, but I don't remember actual stimming until about 4-5 and then it was rare and has continued to grow over the years. His stimming still isn't constant but it is fairly frequent and when he is stressed it can be close to constant. Heck he is NOW getting into strings. A bit late for that one.
3) you can definitely tell in the video that Cait was the more impacted child then. I don't understand how it switched. It also seems like his conversational language understanding has gone down or maybe he is just falling further behind as other kids progress.
I guess I see definite ASD issues from day 1 with him and I have for years but it is the quality and quantity of the issues and how they just are not getting better that concerns me.
Don't get me wrong, in some ways he has progressed wonderfully in the past 3 years. But in others he is going in the wrong direction. I don't know of any other ASD kids who have gone down the spectrum from AS to autistic as they got older. It just creeps me out because how do I stop it and where do we go from here.
Then today I correct papers in his class. He is not in mainstream math but he is doing the same work. He just does it with his aide and then turns it in with the regular class. He was the ONLY one who understood the homework today and got a 100%. I asked his aide and she said she didn't really understand it and asked another aide who is good in math to explain it to Mike. She explained it once and he did it all on his own.
Once again, I just DON't GET IT. That boy confuses me!
Renee
((((((((((((( Renee))))))))))))
I haven't read the other posts, but my own thoughts are:
* When they're younger, they don't have as many outside stimulations or home demands (school, dressing themselves, chores, etc) that overstimulate them and put them on edge from the moment they wake up; we're better able to insulate them at a younger age. I know that when I was helping my 8yo ds more with his activities that we didn't have as many meltdowns as we do now that I expect him to be more responsible for himself, like dressing himself (in less than an hour). And, once he's through dressing, he's already on edge for the rest of the day.
* Siblings had fewer school/extracurricular activities, so there were fewer excursions that were mandatory that kids had to be dragged to to overstimulate them.
* There's more growth/hormonal changes going on at the current age.
* I also think that when the kids are older, they have more knowledge & independent thoughts/ideas to create conflict, stress and overstimulation.
* And, of course, from the interviews I've had recently for my kids' diagnostic testing, it sounds like regression as kids age, at least in some areas, is not necessarily uncommon?
It WOULD be terribly frustrating to look back and see what appears to be more normalcy at a younger age, but besides whatever real reasons might be causing the differences, you're also probably viewing your kids in their best possible light, and not necessarily remembering the moments that might more accurately parallel their current behaviors. Both of my kids with problems have had their issues become more pronounced the older they've gotten, but I really think it's because of many of the issues I cited and not because they are experiencing more deficits.
Sorry you're having this tough moment.
Renee,
I think there are more ASD kids out there that seem to regress or at least the ASD traits are more noticeable as they get older.
Renee,
OK I didn't read most of the responses to this. I saw the general tone, and decided you got lots of hugs and sympathy already. It's time for some objective, out-of-the box
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
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Renee -I'm with you. Jake is 13.5 (Aspergers/ADHD)and he is such a different boy then he was at say 1-5.
I saw no signs of AS when he was a toddler..ok so he knew things that others didnt and he had above average speech. But he didnt know a stranger and would converse with anyone..now he has panic attcks just going into walmart..is rigid, obcessive, moods that go back and forth(this is some teenager I think), cant sleep, is oppositional...I could go on and on......
YOU ARE NOT A BAD PARENT!!
Liza
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