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| Thu, 11-16-2006 - 3:05am |
Hello all!
I'm new here, my DS who is 2.5yrs was just evaluated by a psychologist on Monday and he says he may likely have Asperger's. After what I've read, I think I agree! I have another DS who is 5.5 months and a DH who is most likely an undiagnosed case of something screwy!
I decided not to post in the Newbie section because my post is going to have a lot of meat and questions in it...so better to put it up here!
What I am curious about is if anyone posting here has had similar issues with their child. I know, a doozy of a topic. I'm not looking for dissertations from everyone, just to see if anyone is in the same boat as me on a couple of issues.
1. My son's most troubling issue is feeding. He never graduated to Stage 3 baby foods! The little chunks in there made him gag. A lot of new foods made him gag. We first tried a Stage 3 when he was about 8-9 months...since then it's been Stage 2, Stage 2, Stage 2, yogurt, and oddly enough, crunchy things. As he has gotten older, his menu variety has gone down (for instance, there were a few semi-soft things he would eat--grilled cheese, waffles, pizza crusts, etc) not only because he singled stuff out, but because I needed to give him the most nutritionally dense foods and that isn't much when it comes to prepackaged baby foods. Now he's to the point where his menu really doesn't vary much from day to day, and if he even comes over to see you eating, he will wretch violently. Put something in his mouth that isn't acceptable...and watch him gag so hard he throws up whatever he has eaten...
2. Sorta in line with #1, my son has HUGE tonsils. He got that from me, though I never had a feeding issue with it (unless I was sick). When he has a sore throat, he gags on every bite of what he is eating. We are likely getting his tonsils out next month...I hope!!!! I had mine out at 14yrs.
3. How many times can you say ECHOLALIA?!?!?! OMG, this kid is a pure mimic in not only speech, but movement too. He still has trouble sometimes tracing where someone is pointing because he just focuses on the pointing you do and then points with his finger in a different direction. He has an OUTSTANDING ALMOST FRIGHTENING memory. He has memorized several books (even longer ones like How the Grinch Stole Christmas), a zillion songs, scripts from tv shows (he has Finding Nemo DOWN PAT) and toys/games, and that is the only language we get from him. He has just about ZERO communication that isn't a phrase he repeated from us or somewhere else. Now, sometimes he will repeat a phrase when it is appropriate (like, we always say, "Who wants to go outside?" when it is time to leave and now whenever he wants to go outside, he will repeat it). But there is no self-created phrasing.
4. He is somewhat awkward in his movements...goes slowly down and up stairs...doesn't climb a lot on the playground equipment.
5. When he was an infant, initially I was able to nurse him and then he'd fall asleep nursing and I could put him up on my chest and have us both nap together. But that stopped after he was a few months old. I would feed him, he'd fall asleep, but as soon as I would put him up there he would start squirming and fussing...he couldn't be rocked and sung to sleep, he always had to have the swing. Thank god for the swing. Note, at night he woke up often and that lasted until after I weaned him at 20 months, but he was always pretty easy to get back to sleep at night--we co-slept and he would fall back asleep after nursing. I don't know if this is related to his disorder or not, which is why I'm looking for similar experiences. He was never a baby who wanted to recline...try holding him in your arms in a relaxed position, and he'd constantly be trying to sit up.
6. He is mildly hypothyroid. He has been since birth, but despite growing a lot, he has never needed an increase in his medication. We have tried stopping it, but he always ends up needing it--just the lowest does possible.
7. He had a run in with a strange illness when he was about 18months...the docs think he maybe had an atypical case of Kawasaki's disease. They went ahead and treated it, but no one is sure that is what he really had.
8. His amazing abilities at 2.5 years old are...knows the entire alphabet and spells words everywhere at home and when we are out and about. He knows from memory how to spell Toys R Us (LOL! You can tell we go there a lot), cow, mom (though he never calls me any name, much less mom, unless I walk into the room and he points me out). His favorite toys right now are my Speak and Spell from 1978 and the Leap Frog Word Whammer that teaches him to spell 3-letter words. He, in the last two weeks, has gotten into not just spelling the word, but using phonics to sound it out. Just last week he sounded out the word "Magnificent" with no help or even coaxing from us--he just saw a book that had it on the cover and thought he would say it. He can tell you all the planets, including several moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, and he can distinguish a galaxy from a nebulae. He loves looking at pictures of galaxies. He knows the 6 colors of the rainbow and other colors like brown, black, white, pink, silver, and gold. He can count to 20 and can count objects if you ask him a "How many?" question.
OK, I'm not bragging here, even though I am extraordinarly proud of him. I wanted to list that because I not only want to know similar troubles any of you have encountered, but similar achievements when your children were this small.
PHEW! I know that is a lot! But I am really interested in hearing your similar experiences. I know people get tired of typing the same thing (I was in the May Miracles 2004 board for a long time) so if you have a story of yours typed out somewhere in another message thread, just send me the link to it!
I would like your thoughts on these two questions...Will my boy EVER eat normally (he is getting food therapy now) and will he EVER speak to me and actually communicate in a way beyond repeating the same dialogue from Play With Me Sesame!?! LOL!!!
Looking forward to hearing more about all of you!
----C


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Thanks for the ideas of whistles, bubbles, and blowing through a straw.
I think Henry would enjoy those things.
I love new ideas!
Thanks to all of you! I'm looking forward to hear more about all our lovely kiddos!
I am just reminded of another quirk...if Anakin gets his hand slapped or if he bumps his head, he will repeat it either by smacking himself or re-bumping his head. He doesn't do it over and over, just the one extra time. Weird...
----C
http://www.unc.edu/~cacecil/Anakin
"if Anakin gets his hand slapped or if he bumps his head, he will repeat it either by smacking himself or re-bumping his head. He doesn't do it over and over, just the one extra time. Weird.."
Adam (PDD-NOS, 4 years old) does that too - he always has.
Hiya C, welcome to the board.
My son never had those extreme food issues.. he does have his particulars, things he absolutely won't eat, things he will eat too much of if I'm not careful to watch him, ect.
Anakin LOVES songs where movements are involved...can you say Hokey Pokey Elmo?!? LOL!!! That's his FAV!
I knew how to read before Kindergarten too, and I must say I don't even remember them teaching us in Kindergarten either. I was going to second grade for reading when I was in first grade.
As for remembering how old he is...I didn't have much experience with two year olds before him--which is one reason why it took us so long to see how different Anakin was. We just thought his peculiarites were mostly personality things. Anakin is such a sweet and gentle boy, he rarely needs any sort of discipline. I am into "redirection", so if he has something he shouldn't I usually just find something he likes better and switch. He usually has no problem relinquishing the bad thing. Occasionally we get the overdramatized reactions for something--especially when we use a stern voice to warn him about not standing on the chair or something. But usually that is over just as quick as it starts. Because we never get conversations out of him, it would be difficult to over- or under-shoot our age-appropriate interactions. I think a lot of the time, we still have to talk to him like he's 18 months instead of 30 just to get through to him.
Kawasaki's is a virus that causes a high fever for a week, you get really red eyes, your fingertips peel, sometimes there is a strange rash on your belly...it can cause heart problems/enlargement, so kids have to get a sonogram done even up to one year after the incident to make sure nothing is wrong with their ticker. For treatment, kids get a bag of gammoglobulin--which is quite pricey. It's basically pooled anti-bodies they pull from donated blood. They also have to take aspirin everyday to reduce the chance of heart issues. He was checked out after the incident and no heart issues arose, so he is not on aspirin. I know it tends to affect Asians more...he doesn't have any direct Asian genetic link, but my husband's family is Sioux--and it is prevalent among Native American and Pacific Islander lines too. Caucasians can get it, it's just more rare. Doctors are really unsure about a lot of stuff when it comes to this disease.
----C
http://www.unc.edu/~cacecil/Anakin
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