Hi, found some interesting vids on Youtube. This is just one by Christschool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-azkTDabXU8&NR=1
Before showing video of baby son and pointing out early signs of ASD, he warns parents against curebies and advises that put their energies into loving their child for who they are.
I personally wouldn't read anything into a child at ten weeks.
I believe that early signs can be useful looking back, to confirm a diagnosis, but I think trying to decide who your child is by his or her behavior as an infant will inherently lead to frustration and poor parenting choices. A parent should be flexible, growing and changing with their child, not locking expectations or making assumptions, especially during the preschool and infant years. Just IMHO.
Darn, can't edit.
I really should go watch the video ... it sounds like the premature diagnosis really wasn't the point, was it? The point being closer to what I said, anyway ...
Sorry this is long, but I think that this is important. So, for those with no access to YouTube, here is a transcript of the first six minutes of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-azkTDabXU8&NR=1
Startling Video of Autism Evident at 10 Weeks of Age
Background music: Elton John “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.”
Background picture of young baby.
This video will contain 8 minutes of video of my son at 10 weeks of age.
Some will believe they see a neurotypical child.
But I see something different.
Before I show you what I see, let’s discuss the subject of regression in autism and it’s perception.
I do not believe that children regress into Autism.
Despite studies that claim to support regressive autism, I believe they are “bogus” because these studies rely on parental memory which is inherently flawed.
A lot of studies, including longitudinal studies of autism, rely upon the recollection of individuals on past events.
For instance, eyewitness testimony of crimes tend to be very inaccurate and false. Without rehashing the various studies that prove eyewitness testimony to be inherently unreliable, I suggest the viewer do a simple google search for these references.
In a vaccine injury court in the US, a parent presented “evidence” of a vaccine injury by showing video of their child as an infant and toddler prior to “regression” which they claimed occurred because of the MMR vaccine. The parents falsely believed there were no signs of autism prior to the MMR vaccine.
In fact, the only expert testimony that addressed the videos concluded that they clearly showed signs if autism long before the MMR. This expert is widely known in the “autism community” and very respected.
His conclusion: the child was showing signs of autism, including not making eye contact, not responding to her name, even when adults called her name over and over, fixating on Sesame Street videos to an unusual degree, flapping her hands and flicking her hands in front of her eyes.
This expert testified that parents of autistic children frequently use compensatory strategies to engage autistic children. The parents clearly demonstrated in the video are shown using these strategies to engage the child.
Autism regression is very controversial and is a source of very passionate views on both sides. People can convince themselves that they think they saw one thing when they were actually viewing something different.
The expert witness was asked by the “judge” if it was unusual for parents to miss early signs of autism in their children. The expert witness answered that it was typical that parents of first children typically miss the signs of autism in their children because they don’t have a clear idea of typical development like parents of autistic children who had a typical child first.
Why is the subject of regressive autism important?
Because parents need to understand that often signs of autism begin at birth. It’s important because parents of newly diagnosed children will be swept up in false science and an industry that wants to sell them miraculous cures that don’t exist.
If you are the parent of a newly diagnosed child, you are experiencing a great deal of grief. You may be tempted to place blame in someone or something that caused your child’s autism.
You need to know that there will be very seductive theories out there to try to explain why your child is autistic.
A grieving parent and head of Generation Rescue telling parents that “ALL AUTISM IS MERCURY POISONING”. Despite multi-nation studies that conclude it is not.
Cut to interview titled “J.B. Handley / Son Has Autism”
Mr. Handley: “Um... that autism is a mis-diagnosis for mercury poisoning. If you line up a hundred symptoms of mercury poisoning and a hundred symptoms of autism they are exactly the same”
A doctor with his own public relations firm listed as his contact information that never wrote or talked about autism until just recently when it became “vogue” to jump on the bandwagon.
Cut to interview.
Doctor: “That autism was really a systemic body disorder that affected the brain”
A doctor from Florida who has been disciplined by his own medical board and does ot have any training in neurology, pediatrics or psychiatry. He is a plastic surgeon. Nevertheless, he offers his opinion as well as a colleague who is falsely associating himself with MIT on his user channel in order to bolster his credibility.
Cut to interview.
Doctor: “..um n um... I really feel strongly that autism is an auto-immune disease.”
An alternative medicine doctor with no formal training in pediatrics, neurology or psychiatry upon learning about autism through a flier, decided to sell his services to parents of autistic children. His only knowledge was the movie Rainman.
Cut to interview.
Doctor: “...working with a friend of mine and we received a flier in the mail for something called a DAN conference and at that time I’d never heard of... er... autism and, you know, the only reference point I had for, for autism was the movie Rainman.”
These theories are espoused by not only industries set up to take your money and prey on your hope, but they will be espoused by other parents that are still in the grips of their own grief.
These “groups” will coddle your grief and give you emotional support, all the while they will be leading you down the path of false promise, false hope, false conclusions.
While these “groups” are coddling your grief and anger, you may start to view your child “damaged”, “stolen” and “broken”. However, they are the ones damaging your child because they damage your ability to parent, relieving you of your responsibility to teach your child, to comfort your child and to presume competence in your child.
These people and these profit industries are not going to be with you at your child’s IEP. They will not be there if your views change and you no longer align yourself with their “conspiracies”.
But, most importantly, you will spend years engulfed in the “land of self deception”. Instead of spending time and helping your child overcome the many obstacles in his/her path, you may spend your time chasing after the “dream child”. A child that was never born and never existed.
You will rob yourself of a relationship with your child and you will rob your child a relationship with you that is their natural right.
You may feel guilt for the years you spent “treating” your child, robbing your own life and theirs of the natural acceptance that is every child’s birthright.
Acceptance does not mean you do nothing. It does not mean that you accept everything. But it does mean that you accept that the child you have is autistic, and that you will give them the tools to navigate the world that is aligned against them. A cruel world full of people that don’t accept difference.
There is no cure or recovery of autism and anyone that tells you there is, is lying or deceiving themselves. However, autistic children progress. As a parent, your job is to expand their opportunities and instil a sense of self esteem. Autistic people do not need pity. We need help in certain areas, and we need to be allowed to use our unique strengths.
Part Two:
Background - video of baby interacting with his father who is off-camera
This is my son at 10 weeks of age. His head was already in the 75th percentile range.
Many of you may recognize the constant back and forth movement of his legs in your own child’s infant period. This would later be described as hyposensitive by the OT evaluation.
Don’t assume everything in your child’s evaluation is correct. The OT also wrote that my son stares at lights, windows and blinds. He’s never done that. It was a stereotype she read somewhere and used it as a filler for her evaluation.
He never had eye contact unless I was doing something silly.
Continues video of baby interacting with his father. Baby prefers to watch the camera!
I see everything in my son today that is in this video.
From his attempts to imitate to his sense of anxiety.
His short breathing is his manifestation of anxiety in trying to follow my voice and requests.
My son has always been sensitive to where his mother is at any given time.
He even yawns the same way today, lol.
Continues video. Baby still prefers to watch the camera!
He is still a “ham” today as anyone who has seen my video’s knows.
Continues video. Father removes a loose hair from baby’s nose.
He is still very sensitive if someone touches his face.
Continues video. Father makes daft noises at baby.
By the way, I still make weird noises today, even without my son around, lol.
Apparently, my penchant for making weird noises is a manifestation of my own autism. I never need a baby around to make them. I just thought it was natural behavior.
Continues video. Father makes more daft noises at baby.
Now, watch as his anxiety increases.
Video. fades as baby gets distressed.
Some may see a neurotypical child, but I see my son and he is autistic. He always was. Just like his Dad. :-)
Wow, Tigger, you're an awesome typist!
That would have taken me for ever. Thanks for doing that, I didn't realise not everyone could see Youtube.
I'm skeptical of being able to tell anything in a 10wk old. But I'm the last person who would know. As a kid I used to say, "You see one baby and you've seen them all." I know people love to show their babies but I never see whatever they say they see in them, like what the kid is thinking or who he is supposed to look like. I get about as much from such an exchange as staring at a potato. Good thing the video had words.
That said, I often like Christschool's videos. He has some great ones.
I read this article which is for a 6month old - perhaps more reliable then 10 weeks
Tilt test spots early Asperger's
Parents could perform the tilt test, say the researchers
Parents can check whether their baby is likely to have a form of autism by doing a simple test of head movement, say US scientists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3929045.stm
The video isn't about early diagnosis, he's pointing out, for the benefit of parents who believe that their child was unaffected by ASD before, for example, MMR injections, that their memories are playing tricks on them or that they just didn't notice the early signs.
It was only when watching the second part of the video, when he says that the way the baby is breathing is a sign of distress, that I remembered that my son used to breathe like that. It did concern me, and I took him to the GP who told him it was because he was so small and not to worry.
I've always been sceptical of the case for MMR causing ASD and my son had the injections. Now, I realise that some people are likely to ask me what I think, so this video was helpful to me - I'll refer people to it, if they refuse to believe that my son was always different.
I think I need to hit myself on the hand for commenting before watching the video!
It's just that early perception is such a sore point with me. Based on how my son was as an infant, we expected him to be brilliant in school, and highly social. Well, he is smart, and he does like people, but he is also much more of a mixed bag than that, and it was very difficult to deal with the loss of the dream that others had us believing from a very early age. So, that is what triggered my initial response.
I watch that video and I simply see an adorable baby. Reminds me a lot of my son as an infant.
The funny thing is, my son was never perceived as "normal." He was different from day one, but we were constantly told what a gift it was, even if it made him challenging to parent. He didn't sleep much, and he constantly wanted to be held (he is very much a sensory seeker when it comes to touch). He was highly curious and alert, very active, and sat up early because doing so enhanced his view of the world (one of the many puzzling things for us, later, was finding him behind on physical development, because he hit all the markers ahead as an infant - but, then, he had reason to, a need to). He was interested in other babies long before they became interested in him, although he was also always oblivious to any sign that they weren't enjoying the contact as much as he was. People read all this as indicating a highly gifted child, a super intelligent and energetic one, destined to do great things. AND they thought he was about the cutest baby in the world. Strangers were always stopping me and telling me how engaging he was, how unbelievably cute, how he sparkled and emanated life. My daughter, the easy baby, my NT child, got very little of that sort of attention.
I would say that the best lesson to learn, still, is that very little that happens when a child is an infant sets up the future. To lock into any assumption, including "phew, my child is normal," is dangerous for both parent and child.
Looking at that video, I could see something a bit unusual about the little baby boy. Mum said I used to constantly kick my legs around and if anything was put over my feet and legs, I'd keep kicking until I'd knocked it off.
As it happened, the father's instincts were right, and perhaps having autism himself gave him some extra insight into his son's condition. Good on him too for giving those curebie organisation and quack medical practitioners a serve.
I was very quiet as a baby (which I'm sure helped out my parents, who had two other kids to keep track of). I also remember fixating on spinning toys and ceiling fans, lining stuff up, and there was this rattle that had bars and a ball stuck inside it. I always thought I could figure some way to get the ball out, and wasn't so interested in shaking it as I was in figuring a way to undo the rattle or otherwise get the ball.
Of course, I also seemed to prefer to sleep in day and stay up all night watching Disney movies repeatedly with my dad. So even if I wasn't noisy, I did cause some lost sleep.
Does anyone know how to get the link to work for the baby video - of the first post ? maybe it is off utube...
Shortly after I posted this - I'd forgotten about this! - Christschool took most of his videos off Youtube. Something was going on, I don't know if anyone knows what.
