Kev, hoping things have improved now with your daughter. There is one thing that worries me in your previous posts - your daughter hitting her mother. I don't think she should be allowed to do that even if she is autistic. I don't mean hitting her back - just restraining her from hitting.
If she isn't stopped now when she is little, she could still be doing it when she is much bigger and stronger. Not sure what to advise about the clinginess except to say that often kids go through stages where they only want mum or dad or some other significant person. It's just that its usually more intense with Autistic people.
Have you considered seeing a family therapist? I'm concerned the problem might get worse once the baby is there. A therapist might pick up on something you miss because you are so used to it. It would also be good to get some support structure together now.
(NB: If you consider therapy, find someone who understands autism)
Maybe with the new pregnancy there is a slight change in the household routine Megan was used to and its upsetting her greatly. Any form of change can invoke great anxiety in autistics. It sounds as though Megan might have an anxiety problem.
Warm milk with camomile tea can help calm her down before bedtime.
I suppose my post is a bit late
I didn't look at the dates (typical).
Did you find a solution? If so, share it with us please :grin:
If, God forbid, my child is autistic, I would hope that they are high spectrum. If not, I would hire a professional to take care of it, since I am fairly wealthy.
Yeah, a bit mean.
But the signature: Autistic kids rock! (literally!) made me laugh out loud!
No, I wouldn't totally ignore my kid. I have no knowledge on how their brains work, so I decided that he'd have a better life if taught by a pro.
Oh, I don't know where my other reply went so I'll reconstruct as best as I can. I still think it is very naughty for kids to hit their parents. They have to learn that it just isn't on to do that.
I don't know if Al Capone is a troll - he might just have the rather warped sense of humour some of us Aspies have.
A problem that comes up with Aspie parents is we often have very set ideas about what should and shouldn't happen. I can remember getting into fights with rellies about their using dummies for instance. Then again, they dissed me for breastfeeding past 6 months. I also have strong ideas about temper tantrums and screaming.
This is because I find the noise and the strong emotions to be distressing to the maximum and just too much to handle. I don't think it is mean to want a break from a really demanding child now and then.
I also think some people can get helped by professionals like the Supernanny. She has certainly done wonders with some kids but I don't know how she would go in dealing with an autistic child as a lot of the things that work with so called normal children mightn't be so successful with autistic children.
My wife and I saw that show as well. We were both stunned. We just don't know what to expect. Fear of the unknown...
We communicate just fine non-verbally. And maybe that's part of the problem. I really don't think he is very motivated to say anything.
enzo
I don't know what age your son is, but I think if he is communicating in a nonverbally way and you yourself don't have a great problem with it, don't let other people make a problem out of it.
That does not mean, you should not try to teach your child language, but mute children (is this the correct term?) won't speak, either! Whatever reason it is, that causes a child not to speak, there are still other ways of communication.
It's much more worth a human is a happy being, than a high intelligent being, I think. (I for myself work at the first thing)
Sibylle
Well, he's only 21 months old. I may seem overly agressive to be tackling this at his age, but I don't want anything to slow his development.
I'm being told he should be saying several words by now. But currently, he only says nuh-uh, and uh-oh. He uses these in the correct context. The rest is just babble.
If he just doesn't feel like talking right now, that's fine with me. I just want to make sure he's not physically unable to speak. So the hearing test was a few days ago and the speech evaluation is on the 30th.
Does anyone have any advise on what to ask when we meet with the speech pathologist? I think they are going to try and determine if he is just taking is time, or if there is something preventing him from speaking. I don't really know how this is done, but I guess we'll find out.
Little boys are often slower to speak than little girls and it's certainly not uncommon for children of 21 months (particularly boys) to only say a few words.
Of course it's best to get it checked out if you think your child isn't developing as fast as normal. But there's probably no need to hit the panic button just yet.
I think the instructions she gives to parents can be hard to follow. What struck me most about her show was how often the parents were not working in co-operation with each other. No wonder the kids were running riot. I agree with some of her ideas but also think many others would be too difficult for most of us to implement even if they were desirable.
Oh yes, tell me about it. How fun it was to have an adult towering over you and saying you had to agree with them even when they were quite incorrect about something.