My 4 1/2 year old Grant who has yet to be fully diagnosed but it is most likely that he probably has PDD, he has absolutely no patience whatsoever. It is just so very frustrating and i just need to vent. For instance if he wants something such as more to drink or eat, he wants it right that minute and if I tell him that it will be just a minute and I will get it, he just throws an all out tantrum. he just does not understand the concept of waiting and it is just so frustrating to me.If it helps any Lou is the same way. His ST told me that it comes from his
lack of understanding of time. He can understand that x activity comes after
y activity but whether it's a minute or an hour he doens't understand wait.
Some days it's enough to drive you up a wall but there are a few things I've
done that help sometimes. For example if he has to wait for something to
cook I put on a timer so he can watch it count down and he knows when the
timer goes off that the item he is waiting for is done. If it's an activity like
going to the park and we can't go that minute and it's before lunch I'll tell
him first lunch then park so he knows that after lunch it's time for the park.
These things don't always work but more often then not they do and it's
helped my sanity a lot!
Jeffrey cannot get the concept of telling time, but is getting better at it. He gets confused on the different face clocks (at least that is still in the IEP). He also is very impatient. And I thought my mom was impatient
Tammy P.S. And I don't want another kid either, no matter how much Gabe claims I need one
My son wasn't diagnosed until he was 4 years old. He's now 14, and has learned to cope with a lot of things he never could have at 4. Please try to be patient with him, and be consistent, and he'll learn patience, turn-taking, and a host of other "normal" traits. Andy can still pester us to death, but he's so much better than he was when he was younger. Kim I have tried many things to try to distract him while he is waiting and it works sometimes by giving him a toy. I did try the timer lastnight while he was waiting for his dinner to finish cooking and he still was a little bit antsy but seemed a little bit better. I took him to his doctor today because his blood test was back and we went over the results and it had come back completely normal. His pediatrician had gotten a fax from his pediatric behavorial specialist doctor and what she says is that she thinks that all that is wrong with him is a severe speech delay and that his autistic behaviors probably are due to the lack of speech and now Grants regular pediatrician that he saw today is saying that he thinks that might be the case. I could not believe he said that. I told him that no I do not believe that at all that we know there has to be more to it than just the speech delay so a little reluctantly he said that he would order a ct scan to be done so that maybe it can give us all a little peace of mind. Grant will have to be sedated for the ct scan but I am sure that the ct scan might just be the thing that might tell us some of what is going on with Grant so that we can move forward. I don't know why noone around here believes that Grant might have PDD or some form of Autism in addition to the speech delay. Is it so wrong for me to want answers? No wonder why my hair is turning grey!! To megan wait is a 4 letter word of the worst kind. She absolutely cant wait and absolutely will not be distracted untill he mission is accomplished lol.. I want to pull my hair out. The only solutions we have found is many of the things she cant wait for are the same so we anticipate them if we can and move fast.. LOL.. I dont know why some professionals liek to avoid dx a chidl with pdd-nos and say it is all the speech delay. We had some of the same things said without testing at times. Do you have a Autism center at a univeristy or hospital that does evaluations. We went to one to get a diagnosis and I am confident we got the right answers. Good Luck. I know that this is frustrating for you. I've been there. We got caught in the middle of a move before we got a diagnosis. He was already on a very long waiting list to be seen at Vanderbilt university in Nashville when my husband got stationed here in SC. We had to start everything from scratch to include his early intervention and all his therapies and then of course finding a place that does the diagnosing. We were fortunate enough to have several places here in SC that diagnose this spectrum. We did choose however to travel a few hours away to Charleston because their list was so much shorter than the center here in our own city. If we would have picked the one here then he would still be waiting because they didn't even have an opening until Sept or Oct of this year. So when you do call around don't forget to ask how long the waiting list is. And trust me...even if you have to travel a bit farther it is worth it when you finally find out exactly what is going on. Take care, karrie I agree with susan here. If you have a center near you I would set up appt for a complete evaluation. It's true that you can have a child with speech impairments, delays etc that can cause autism like behaviors but to be honest with you I would push for a full eval...because if it is not just a speech delay..your child is going to need all the services he can get. My niece has a speech impairment and when she was very young showed behaviors that were autistic...and that is exactly what my sister and I thought that she had. My sister took her to vanderbilt university and she seen a full team there and it was like a 3 day process with ALL kinds of doctors evaluating her and it turned out to just be a speech impairment. She is 10 years old now and you would not be able to tell that anything was ever wrong with her speech. The thing is though....looking back she never had any social delays that were not directly linked to her delay in speech. These things can be very difficult to differ between and that is why i say it will be a good idea to take your child to a center that does a complete evaluation just to be safe....that is if there is one available in your state or closest bordering state. Take care, Karrie God Bless you & keep you safe! LINDA...aka Tony'sMom...aka MWN64 That's exactly what we are doing with Connor now, we count when we have to wait, we started with his toys, he's verbal so say i had one of them, he'd ask for it and I'd say ok, but we have to wait, we started off just counting to 5, and we've expanded from there. we are now working on waiting in line ( at school, at the store, at the deli) and yes, it's super aggrivating but necessary for us. I agree with keeping cool during meltdowns, this , i believe has significantly helped all of us. LOL heck I am pushing 30 and still haven't learned much patience! My son is one that the docs haven't yet diagnosed officially becuase of his speech delay. They cannot determine at this point if the behaviors he is exhibiting stem from a combination of personality, intelligence and speech/langague delay or if they come from something else. As for services, he gets the same services now as he would with a PDD-NOS diagnosis so for us it didn't matter. It will probably be another 2-3 years before we know for sure what the diagnosis will be. Something else,.... and this may sound silly, but really,.... I think its worth a try..... Our kids seem to learn by WATCHING...... So by US keeping OUR cool it sets them the example of proper behavior,..... So when we first did this if I needed a drink I made myself wait too when my son was around... it set the example for him to try to understand EVERYONE needs to wait sometimes. Lol, that explains some of it. So I guess when a telemarketer calls again and the kids are around I can't say I am just walking out the door, call back later.
Tammy We use timers but we are also able to use verbal warnings (5 minutes left, 1 minute left, etc). I have also found that by giving my oldest a clear definition of what is expected of him helps too (for example I can tell him that he can play on the computer until dinner is served then he must get off, and when I yell dinner time he gets off) Things are much harder when I am unable to give him a clear expectation of when things will happen. We expand this a bit to other areas, for example he will tell me to keep driving in traffic and I have to tell him that I can't drive until the light turns green (if I am the first car) or I can't go until the car in front of us starts to go. (This has translated well when having to stand in lines)
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