04-18-2008, 04:38 PM
Hi and welcome!
You have pretty much described my own son! We're still waiting for an official assessment, but I anticipate his being dxed as Asperger's. We met with the community paediatrician in December last year, and when she said that she was going to refer him to Autism Team I was stunned, because I didn't associate my son's behaviour with was I now realise are, as Tigger points out, stereotypes of autism.
What I would say is, that my son is now 6 years old, two years older than your son and in Primary 2. What could be seen in a 4 year old as not particularly unusual behaviour for that age group, becomes increasingly more out-of-step with their peers as they get older. My son is also very sociable, but is finding friendships more difficult now as his friends move on to other interests. His immaturity and tantrums, his determination to play *his* games, *his*way and his difficulty in sharing toys are making it very difficult and upsetting for him.
My son is also very confident around adults and will think nothing of walking up to "a staff" in a shop or museum and asking if they sell something he's looking for or questioning them about their exhibits. He has great fun playing with children who are a couple of years younger than him - maybe because they are more likely to defer to him and also to be still interested in Thomas!
What I also put down to "selective deafness" creates more problems for a school age child as he has great difficulty following instructions given by the teacher. My son started talking at 18 months, and like your son, hasn't stopped since! When he was 3 his nursery suggested there might be a problem, and said we should see if he could be refered to a Speech and Language Therapist. I can now see, with hindsight, that we made a mistake in thinking that because his vocabulary, pronounciation and sentence structure were very good that he didn't have any problems. His pragmatic language skills are very poor. He talks incessantly about his own interests, it's very difficult to attract his attention or keep his attention when you're talking about something else, and he keeps returning to his own topic of conversation. He constantly talks over me when I'm speaking on the phone or to someone else and can't understand when he has to stop talking - for example, when he gets in the car he doesn't stop talking so that I can shut his door and get in the car myself!
I don't know if your son is at school yet, but it was when at school that my son's differences began to have an impact. As far as reading, spelling, arithmetic are concerned he is well above average. However, his writing is poor, his organisational skills pretty much non-existent and he is freaked out by loud noises. I discovered only recently that he has had to be comforted or removed from the situation when drama groups have visited the school.
I know I'm going on a bit, so I'll stop soon - promise!
My son is wonderful - he's a smart, imaginative, creative, confident wee boy with a lot to say for himself and a lot to offer the world. He also has problems, though, and the route to diagnosis is providing me with a means of getting support for him and continues to give me a greater understanding of how he perceives things. I now have a better understanding of his picky eating and problems with using cutlery, of the fact that he cannot go a swing by himself, that some situations overwhelm him and that he is not (always!) being wilfully disobedient or difficult when he doesn't do what he's asked, when he's asked.
One last thing! I've done a lot of reading and have now bought Tony Attwood's "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome", which I have found very helpful.
Please send me a private message or post again on this thread.
You have pretty much described my own son! We're still waiting for an official assessment, but I anticipate his being dxed as Asperger's. We met with the community paediatrician in December last year, and when she said that she was going to refer him to Autism Team I was stunned, because I didn't associate my son's behaviour with was I now realise are, as Tigger points out, stereotypes of autism.
What I would say is, that my son is now 6 years old, two years older than your son and in Primary 2. What could be seen in a 4 year old as not particularly unusual behaviour for that age group, becomes increasingly more out-of-step with their peers as they get older. My son is also very sociable, but is finding friendships more difficult now as his friends move on to other interests. His immaturity and tantrums, his determination to play *his* games, *his*way and his difficulty in sharing toys are making it very difficult and upsetting for him.
My son is also very confident around adults and will think nothing of walking up to "a staff" in a shop or museum and asking if they sell something he's looking for or questioning them about their exhibits. He has great fun playing with children who are a couple of years younger than him - maybe because they are more likely to defer to him and also to be still interested in Thomas!
What I also put down to "selective deafness" creates more problems for a school age child as he has great difficulty following instructions given by the teacher. My son started talking at 18 months, and like your son, hasn't stopped since! When he was 3 his nursery suggested there might be a problem, and said we should see if he could be refered to a Speech and Language Therapist. I can now see, with hindsight, that we made a mistake in thinking that because his vocabulary, pronounciation and sentence structure were very good that he didn't have any problems. His pragmatic language skills are very poor. He talks incessantly about his own interests, it's very difficult to attract his attention or keep his attention when you're talking about something else, and he keeps returning to his own topic of conversation. He constantly talks over me when I'm speaking on the phone or to someone else and can't understand when he has to stop talking - for example, when he gets in the car he doesn't stop talking so that I can shut his door and get in the car myself!
I don't know if your son is at school yet, but it was when at school that my son's differences began to have an impact. As far as reading, spelling, arithmetic are concerned he is well above average. However, his writing is poor, his organisational skills pretty much non-existent and he is freaked out by loud noises. I discovered only recently that he has had to be comforted or removed from the situation when drama groups have visited the school.
I know I'm going on a bit, so I'll stop soon - promise!
My son is wonderful - he's a smart, imaginative, creative, confident wee boy with a lot to say for himself and a lot to offer the world. He also has problems, though, and the route to diagnosis is providing me with a means of getting support for him and continues to give me a greater understanding of how he perceives things. I now have a better understanding of his picky eating and problems with using cutlery, of the fact that he cannot go a swing by himself, that some situations overwhelm him and that he is not (always!) being wilfully disobedient or difficult when he doesn't do what he's asked, when he's asked.
One last thing! I've done a lot of reading and have now bought Tony Attwood's "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome", which I have found very helpful.
Please send me a private message or post again on this thread.
I do get strange looks when my Portal ringtone plays. Seems so many people do not know what on earth it is. Sorry, completely off on a tangent, but then I seem to be good at that!