New and Needing Lots of Input | Autism PDD
I am the mother of six children (and NO MORE
My fifth child is a 27 month old boy named Levi. I have known that Levi has very peculiar behaviors since he was born. He would not make any eye contact for the first six months and he would scream a lot. I continued to nurse him to try to make a bond with him and woud massage his skin all the time. He got where he wanted to sleep on top of my chest whenever he was tired and began making some eye contact.
At about six months he began jumping repetitively when holding onto the side of his crib. But he would watch certain shows like Rolie Polie Olie.
By the time he was a year old he was walking, but he would not talk much. This all seemed normal. The only things at this point that seemed strange were his fascination with his penis, his constant jumping, and when he played he had to have a toy in each hand. He also did not like other children. In general he always wanted to be touching skin, which I feel partly responsible for from all the time I spent cuddling and massaging him when he was a baby. Like he has to have his hand or foot up my arm sleeve or down my shirt. Recently he likes to lift the back of my shirt and put his head and hands up it and hug my back and then tickles me.
At the church nursery Levi would always play with two corn poppers, one in each hand and would go into screaming fits and throw himself down and tantrum if they made him share. He just could not enjoy playing with only one corn popper. It has always been two toys alike...or NONE.
He did start learning some new words, but within a week he would drop them and never go back to them. It was like whatever new word he learned completely replaced the previous word. Mostly he just babbles on and on and on.
Levi does always walk on his toes and he still jumps a lot, but that has slowed down. He now can say several words, but only when he is in the mood. He does line up chairs, toys, blocks, balls, etc.
When playing with toys he either picks one of each color or two colors and makes patterns. He loves puzzles, blocks, legos, balls, cars, etc. He can build awesome things with legos already that my other boys could not have done until they were maybe 5-7 years old.
Levi does spend a lot of time screaming when he gets frustrated. I am considering teaching him sign language, but I wonder if that would work since he has never pointed at things like my other children.
Levi tunes us out most of the time. He does not notice when we call his name, but if I say ba-ba and shake his bottle he comes running. He likes to be in confined places like between couch cushions and in corners. But he will sit anywhere at other times.
Recently Levi is sleeping less and less. I am running on very little sleep because he gets in so much trouble when unmonitored. Mostly just curiosity it seems...he gets into EVERYTHING.
On the upside, Levi is very affectionate with me, his dad, his older sibings, his grandmother, and grandfather. He will cuddle, kiss, and hug. He will make eye contact with us and laugh. He likes to tickle me and make me laugh. When he tantrums I tickle him and tell him it's not sad...it's funny until he starts laughing.
The downside is he does not like his 4 year old brother or his six month old sister. He will not look at them often and screams whenever they touch him (now my six month old does this horrible high pitch screaming too). At church he goes to the corner and plays by himself, he does not like the other children. He does not even enjoy looking at books about other babies. He likes books about puppy dogs mostly. He has recently become attached to a stuffed puppy dog that barks.
Since I am new to this, I would love some input from moms or dads who have a clue.
Thank you so much and may you be blessed, Julianne
Hi Julianne!
I am Danielle Mom to Owen 26 mnth old. He was diagnosed 8 mnths ago with classic autism.
5 kids WOW! I am jealous, that is how many I want! We are working on it
Owen is also a jumpy bouncy fello. Very affectionate as well. nice to meet you!
My son Gavin is 3 yrs old and was diagnosed with autism about 6months ago. When he was 24 months he only said about 3 words so
his doctor suggested I call the state's early intervention program
(called different things in different states, but every state has one).
They sent out a developmental therapist and a speech therapist to
evaluate him. He started getting speech, occupational, and
developmental therapy when he was 27 months. If you haven't
contacted your state's early intervention program yet, I suggest that
be your first step. Most of the time the therapists come to your
home and it is very inexpensive if not free. Even if he is just a typical
boy going through a phase it is great to have the input of
professionals who can help you through the process (although these
therapists cannot diagnose him). The early intervention system was a
godsend for me. I am a young mom and this was my first child. I
didn't know what was normal and what wasn't. You are lucky to have
previous experience and wisdom, but if you haven't already seeking
professional opinions will help.welcome levi'smom, well you'll find out as you read thru the post there are a lot of people here with great info for you. and the sleeping thing, don't worry your not the only one dealing with that about 80% of us do including me. i have 3 kids erica 12 special needs, carlo 5 pdd-nos and ryleigh 20mths normal most of the time lol. hope you will like it here and post anytime and ask ? and don't be afraid. someone will always answer. take care and hope to here from you soon. mom2carlo
Thank you for the warm welcome everybody! Yeah, I am hitting the high frustration level with trying to get him to be officially diagnosed by the Meyer Center. They have over a one year waiting list. Everywhere else I called cannot see him if he is under four. They just do not have the qualifications to work with children that cannot communicate yet.
I have considered the ECI program in our state. They cannot diagnose though and our insurance only covers if he is formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist and/or psychologist. So far any program I look at always says my husband makes too much, even though we live on an extremely tight budget. I want to see thier fee schedule first to see if there is even a possibility.
So I will do all I can until he gets in to the Meyer center. Right now it is just wait and see. We all work with him the best we can. I am switching him to raw dairy products and organic foods too. I am going to try magnesium supplementation to see if it will pull out any mercury toxic build up if he has it. I know my fillings in my mouth caused me to get very ill from mercury build up and gave me fibromyalgia and magnesium worked wonders to pull down my mercury levels. I wonder if that mercury may have passed on during pregnancy? He never had immunizations such as MMR until just this last week.
So much to figure out...
Hi there!My son is Luke and he's 27 mos old, dx'd with PDD NOS 4 weeks ago. He's also VERY active (bouncing, jumping, running) and extremely affectionate (especially of late, where he's been giving me at least one kiss a day and lots of hugs!). He's been getting Early Intervention for several months now, but we recently began speech and occupational therapies privately. He's doing okay (some good days, some not so good), but he's slowly making some progress in speaking, so I'm thrilled about that!
Good luck with your visit to the Meyer Center. It's nice to have you join our group! I think we'd all agree that it is quite overwhelming (especially at first when there's so much to get underway, so many different avenues to follow), but that's why we're all banded here together -- to help each other thru the good times and bad.
Kellie
My son Nick is 27 mos and he knows some sign language. We started teaching him @23 mos. He can sign about 5, but he recognizes a few more when I do them. I have to tell you that for us, sign language was a blesisng. Before he started, his tantrum were terrible. Now he doesn't have nearly as many and when he starts one, we sign for him to "stop" and bea "GOOD BOY" I spent this whole time not hearing"mama" and last week we started signing "mother and father" to him and before you know it, he was saying it. Of course he doesn't call us mom or dad, But it was incredible to finally hear him say it. And you're not alone with the Not sleeping thing. Nick's therapist told us to take out all his toys and things he was interested in( like his music) out of his room. So we decided to try this and believe it or not, he actually started sleeping ALL NIGHT!!!!! Now, I'm not sure how long this will last, but who cares!! LOL I GOT SOME SLEEP!!!! WOOHOO! Anyway, hang in there!
Hi Julieanne! Welcome to the board! I just wanted to let you know of some resources in your area in case you didnt know of them..... http://www.yellowpagesforkids.com/help/tx.htm
http://www.unlockingautism.org/repfinder2.asp?state=TX&a ction=1
or go to www.unlockingautism.org they have a national call center there has to be somewhere to take him for an evaluation!
Call your local school or local special needs school..... I thought (maybe Im wrong) every state had early intervention programs to age 3..... ? If they cant help you ask who can
Also contact your local mental health and your local department of family services Tell them you need to know where to get an evaluation done. Ask your pediatrician. Unfortunately it seems resopurces for special needs kids are the best kept secrets! Please let us know how things go!
You'll LOVE this board, it's full of caring, informative people! I just found this booard 3 weeks ago & am SO VERY GLAD I did!!! My Son is HFA (High Funchtiong Autism) his name is Tony & he's 9 y/o. He's a very smart, affectionate, funny boy! I look forward to getting to know you better! ~Take care!~
Copyright Autism-PDD.net