who in HECK are these people ... ? | Autism PDD
i have only 1 child,so it was hard for me to know what wasnt normal etc.. im an only child myself. my father was the one who told me at 2 years old my son should be talking more... and i should tell his ped. his ped told me for 6 months it was expect on biy sto be late bloomers... my son had no interest in potty training, sensitive to textures, smell,taste... temper tantrums in certain places i would take him ... short attention span,implusive at times etc... not to mention he loves train since he is 1 year old and still loves them. At 2 1/2 is when he started getting help. [QUOTE=abbytherabbit]
I guess I understand what they are saying but geez how are you suppose to gauge this especially if it's your first child?
- Excessive passivity (lack of crying, lack of interest in surroundings)
- Excessive activity (lack of physical calmness, incessant crying)
My dd had colic and cried all the time for months. She didn't have any other ASD behaviors until after she was two.
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And to make it more confusing - LOL - R had neither of the above behaviours and he is considered a classic case
Sarah was a total angel..way too good but hindsight is 20/20
I had so many excuses and subconsciencely knew something was strange and so different and stupid me just truely believed she was the best baby in the world:) I would nurse her and she would just stare at the skylights, ceiling fan and I felt it was odd but never made it an issue or worry..just brushed it off. She was hard to get a smile out of...I remember during all the evals with all the professionals and they pointed out all the autism signs so blatently in front of me I felt so inadequate and stupid for not paying more attn..but learned I was not alone
..if I could make an excuses for her behaviors then she were okay and everything seemed right in the world. For a little while anyway:)
I have come full circle now and have peace again:) Thank God:)
I also think this is Horse____!!!
I wonder how many people did all the things that would attach a baby- IE carrying in sling, constantly with them, not putting them in bassinett, etc. still have autistic children? There are also a lot of kids on the spectrum that don't show signs and actually talk and then regress. How do you deal with this? Unless you have a crystal ball? I agree with early intervention and trying to catch the signs of autism early, however the signs they give are ridiculous.
Laurie
OK you all make good points. The main thing to focus on is that the research they are doing can help identify a certain "at-risk" group. I agree that for first time moms this is probably going to freak them out & take away from their enjoyment of their baby (I still wish i could have had more time with my little guy when everything was "fine" in my own head, I was in denial for a long time). I think they should focus their research on siblings. This way the parents would be familiar with the condition and they would go into the research knowing that there was a chance their child could have it anyway, like when my daughter was a baby. Sure, I took hope in the fact that because of her being a girl who percentages were slightly less. But I was always having to accept the fact that she may not be NT. I think I have had the unique experience (unique to some, not necessarily members of this board) of having my son diagnosed when we were 7 months pregnant with our daughter. Before his formal diagnosis, I insisted that he was Perfect, in fact I thought he was going to gifted! When Arwen was born it was a VERY difficult time because I was very scared that she would have it, and Gage has a VERY hard time adjusting to the baby. He hated the baby in fact. He didn't even realize she WAS a baby, he often treated her as if she were a doll or toy. Plus since he was 2 and newly diagnosed, I had the opportunity to observe how different her babyhood was to his right away, rather than if they had been born several years apart. This experience is why I can understand a lot of what the organization is trying to do. The only problem is, I do think it would overly upset & cause problems for first time parents. I really think they should focus on siblings, because I think siblings could be an ideal subject for this kind of research (sort of like "twin studies" [QUOTE=Laurie]I also think this is Horse____!!!
I wonder how many people did all the things that would attach a baby- IE carrying in sling, constantly with them, not putting them in bassinett, etc. still have autistic children?
Laurie
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that is me - we co-slept , breastfed, sling carried - everything no CIO, no crib, rarely stroller ( not that there is anything necessarily wrong with that either ) and R is still considered classic - he is very attachemd to me though
csm, see that was my gut reaction -- it was scare tactics, with a profit motive.
I can only speak for myself, being the paronid mother of a five month old. I consider this website a resource for things to watch out for in Yosef. Both of my older kids have special needs (oldes has CP and the middle has Autism). I felt there was something not right with either and could never get any professional to agree. It was like they just couldn't bother. But, I always felt that they were seeing it. This information is a tool for me. I see how it could scare others but with all the information out there, people freak out anyways.
Raquel
[QUOTE=Wyattsmommy]While I believe ther intentions are good and they may be doing some great research, I think there is a fine line between early awareness and paranoia. I think these folks have hopped over that line. Most babies have atleast one characteristic on that list. I can see a first time mom with little-to no-sleep getting royally freaked out over this. [/QUOTE]This is a good way to scare a nervous new mother. That web page needs to rewritten by a Dr with more bedside manners. Also, they should realize all autistic babies do not behave that way.
http://www.ipan-infant-autism.org/what_preautism.html
Sometimes it is better NOT to google. Looks like they are STILL selling "refrigerator mother" theory? Or at a minimum, they are panic-inducing about the urgent need for early-early intervention.
Is it just ME?
hmmm...I've always thought most autistic children lead a normal infancy and tend to regress after about a year...I know there is the exception and Mason is one of those but I think worrying about this so early is only going to cause more of a panic too! The signs that they mention could be a million different things and would only cause more stress for parents if they need to be thinking about autism from a few months on...especially if they can't get an actual dx until around 3 and in a lot of cases many years later! Yikes, I'm glad I never came across that when my kids were infants! I would have worried that all of my kids were autistic!
I guess I understand what they are saying but geez how are you suppose to gauge this especially if it's your first child?
- Excessive passivity (lack of crying, lack of interest in surroundings)
- Excessive activity (lack of physical calmness, incessant crying)
My dd had colic and cried all the time for months. She didn't have any other ASD behaviors until after she was two.
I bet they have WONDERFUL "cure" rates.Wow...I can't even believe (ok, guess I can) there is an organization justfor this. And, stating it all w/ such alarm--at 6 mos of age???
So much can change, and diagnosing a child at that age, that to me can
lead to a lot of negative things. Now, our dd was dx'd as delayed @ 6
mos, along w/ hypotonia (many, many more dx's would come as she got
older). She developed normally, if not advanced to 4-5 mos, then things
slowed off & she lost some skills, etc. Anyway, had they dx'd her w/
autism at 6 mos, for one that'd be a lot to take in & I wonder if I'd have
lost a lot of hope? I mean, at 6 mos, you barely know your child & their
personality...so I think some parents may feel entirely hopeless &
essentially give up on their child. Or, possibly even give false promise to
families whose children do end up on the spectrum--they'll end up
thinking had they only done this or that more when he/she was an infant,
their child would not be dx'd, etc. Bad news all around, I think...
Linda--yes, I imagine their "cure" rates are phenomenal! Wonder who/
where the $$ comes from here too!
Oh...and you can't imagine what I found when I googled "Pampers Size 7"
to let y'all know what weight they were for. Seriously...crazy world out
there...
What exactly is a refrigerator mother?I agree, if I had read this site with either boy, I would have assumed they both were autistic. Daniel was an easy child to please. Stephen stayed hungry so often that he was constantly crying.
No, I don't think it's just you.
However, I will say that if I had known that some of the behaviors Jason exhibited as an infant were warning signs of autism, I wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss them as colic (he screamed almost non-stop for four months!), regression due to moves and upheaval in our family.
That said, there are a lot of people who don't see anything amiss because there simply isn't anything wrong, or the signs are so subtle that even experts dismiss them. I wish people would let go of blaming the parents for missing something that can be overlooked even by people who are trained to look for this stuff!
Notice, that they do NOT have charitable organization status, "yet?"
Elle, I once googled "club feet," because we had a referral for a child with them. BIIIG MISTAKE! Very sick and crazy world.
Uh-OH! We did attachment parenting with dd too. Well, there ya go, addthat to the list of causes of ASD.
You know ds developed relatively normally. He had good eye contact, smiled and even "flirted" with people a lot. He loved having people play peekaboo, and other things - he would do the joint attention thing where he would look at it and then look at you. I still think he is on the spectrum. However, he was also very intense and while I wouldn't say colicky - he definitely needed walking at night to get him to relax enough to go to sleep. I would walk with him in the Baby Bjorn for about 45 minutes to an hour (there are paths in our old carpet to prove it!) a night. He would usually wake up when I got him out of the Baby Bjorn to put him in his crib but he was relaxed enough by then to just be held for a bit and then gently put down to sleep.
I didn't read the article yet, but I think with some kids you just wouldn't know. I look back at old videos from when he was a baby and I would not guess - I see very subtle things but nothing earth-shattering. My dd was more interactive and smiley - but she was over-the-top that way.
I wouldn't say we noticed a complete regression with ds. He just gradually did some quirky things - like he wanted to carry around a shoe for a while. Then it was a watering can and then he always wanted the toy vacuum. He did interact with adults a lot and his need for certain routines didn't seem excessive. We just thought he was a bright and happy child. We did notice somewhat of a regression at 3 right after his flu shot. He became more obsessive, more tantrums/meltdowns, lack of eye contact, etc. But it just exaggerated what was already there and brought it more to our attention.
Okay, I read parts of the website. This might catch some kids, but it wouldn't have caught mine. Our only concerns with ds as a baby were: 1) he wouldn't necessarily respond to his name if he was focused on something. He would respond to it mostly, but if he was in his "zone" he would not. 2) I thought his eyes turned out a bit, like mine.
We had his hearing examined - totally fine. We had his eyes tested - they had no idea what I was talking about (this HAS become an issue by the way and he has a medical diagnosis of strabismus now from a doc OUTSIDE of the Mayo Clinic). These original tests were conducted at Mayo, by the way.
He did everything within the "typical" range motor-wise. Even though crawling was late - 9 1/2 months, although he rolled to get anywhere he wanted before that. He walked right before 14 months - again a little late, but still within the typical range. My dd didn't crawl until 10 1/2 months but she army-crawled starting around 7 months old. She walked right before 14 months as well. I was told that both my kids were so big (they were both over 10 pounds at birth) that that made them late in crawling and walking, which made sense to me. I didn't walk until I was 16 months old, so I wasn't worried...
He babbled and cooed starting around 4 months. I will never forget one time he made the sound, "Oh!" at 4 months and startled himself. I repeated it back to him and then he repeated it and laughed. It became a game for a little bit. He even played around with how it sounded - making different inflections. He didn't do a LOT of babbling, but he definitely did some. He would maybe go "bababa" but not "babababababa". It usually stopped after about 3 syllables. He talked a hair late - only had 4 words at 17 months, but then had over 100 at 18 months.
Anyway, maybe ds isn't even on the spectrum according to some - but I think he is and even though he has made a ton of progress through early intervention - I will not regret the first few years we had of just being able to enjoy him for who he is. I am finally getting back to that feeling somewhat in the last few weeks. This board has helped and also his adjustment to our new house and making so much progress has helped as well. The last 2 years have been mostly worry and stress - not just about ds, but a lot of it was. I'm trying to let go of some of that and for those of you who have been around for a while - this is a MAJOR feat for me! Of course, there is always tomorrow. Today, it is a picture-perfect day and my son is out catching butterflies with the neighbor boys. They are headed to the park with the twins' mom (my dd is napping and we will join them after she wakes up). So, right now life is good and I am enjoying the moment!
OK nobody throw rotten vegetables, but I agree with what they are attempting to do here.I just completed my junior year of my Psychology major, and I have also attended several conferences geared for teachers about Autism which I went to for my own benefit, to learn more about my son that is.
It is AMAZING to see the differences between a baby with and without Autism. I experienced this in my own children, although I wouldn't realize it until much later. When Gage was a baby, he was my first baby and I didn't do much babysitting or anything. The doctor always said he was fine, and I thought he was PERFECT. Everything he did, from spitting up to looking at something, caused me to squeal with coos and excitement. In retrospect, he was a very "detached" baby. When i went to a conference in Omaha last year, we watched videos showing babies engaging with their mother. There were several examples, but the one that really stuck out in my mind was when the researcher blew some bubbles for the baby. The Autistic baby stared at the bubbles and seemed to enjoy them, but the non-Autistic baby smiled and kept looking at her mother and back to the bubbles, then back at her mother and back at the bubbles as if to say "Look! Can you see what I am looking at Mom?" and smiling at her. It was such a dramatic difference, but you would only notice it by seeing the videos back to back!
My point being, I think you can identify certain characteristics of a baby with Autism if you were trained to identify them, and it may be possible that infant intervention could improve the child's outcome. The parent & infant & therapist could work on attachment and trying to engage the baby - it is hard to explain, but once a parent could identify those things they could work on it. They could also work on attachment parenting strategies.
For example, I am no parenting guru or anything, but when we had our daughter two months after my son recieved his Autism diagnosis at 2 years old (he was diagnosed as developmentally delayed by 18 months and began testing at 9 months), I practiced attachment parenting and idea I came up with to "combat" Autism because I was so scared our daughter would have it too. Some of the things I did included wearing her in a sling 24-7, she never sat in a carseat carrier like my son-she was always strapped to my body or breastfeeding in the sling. I even carried her around stores in her sling. She never spent more than the time it took to drive somewhere in a carseat carrier. I also was constantly encouraging her to look me in the eye since I was doing this with my son. I gave her infant massages with massage oil and took warm baths with her on my chest - things I didn't do with my son. He always had baths in the baby tub. I would not allow her to be placed in a playpen for any reason! I was convinced that playpens cause Autism by isolating the child into their "own little world". She didn't go to daycare until she was 9 months old, and when she went to daycare she went part time for just about 3 hours a day while I attended a college class. They were not allowed to put her in a playpen and they knew about her brother's condition and spent lots of time interacting with her. She slept with me most of the time, in a special anti-roll sleeper thing so she couldn't roll over and no one could roll over HER without noticing, but she was in my bed. I didn't let her cry herself to sleep at night like my son (like the books always said back then), I always rocked her to sleep and sang her lullabies. I sang my son lullabies too but I usually sat by his bassinette or crib to sing to him rather than holding him & rocking him.
So basically, I just think there are things a person can do as an infant. I don't know why our daughter is NT (normal) and our son is not, and it probably had nothing to do with my huge attachment parenting first year with her. BUT if she HAD HAD Autism, I think those things would have really helped her. And I also think if I would have done those things with my son, he would have made much faster improvements with attaching with other adults and children.
Hope, no vegetables thrown rotten or hard!
thing is ... I am suspicious of certain parts their message, and the idea of proffering a "cure" to peopel whose kids have NOTHING wrong in the first place.
Plus they make it sound as if there is certain behavioral "stuff" missing between the mother and child and if that is NOT what they intend, it needs to be written more tactfully.
I would also like to know, what is a refrigerator mother?
I did the attachment parenting and my dd is ASD. I wonder if that had any effect? I don't think I did anything wrong except possibly passing on something genetic.
Refrigerator mother was Kanner's original concept about the cause of autism.
He believed the mother's emotional coldness toward the baby led the baby to withdraw and develop autism.
Scary to imagine being a mother of a child diagnosed when this was the prevailing belief, no???
Refrigerator mother was Kanner's original concept about the cause of autism.
He believed the mother's emotional coldness toward the baby led the baby to withdraw and develop autism.
Scary to imagine being a mother of a child diagnosed when this was the prevailing belief, no???
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With my in-laws yes!!
All kidding aside, that is horrible.
It IS horrible.
We, too did attachment parenting. My dd was adopted at 12 mos and her history was such that, without knowing her, the possibility of Reactive Attachment Disorder is obvious. And ... it would not be MY fault.
AND, SID is a part of RAD.
BUT, she has never shown poor attachment, never shown indiscriminate friendliness to strangers, and had VERY good sense of stranger avoidance at 12 months and thereafter. So ... outside of THAT, what IS there?
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I will not regret the first few years we had of just being able to enjoy him for who he is. [/QUOTE]
I think that is a very good point -- and don't think he did not benefit from it, either! I think about this a LOT as T was not dx'd till 6 ...
I'm glad no one is throwing tomatoes yet... I actually agree with theirbasic premise because in retrospect, I can see that my son was different
from birth to other babies. He never regressed, he just developed in a
very idiosyncratic way and never developed socially as his peers did. His
gross motor skills developed consistently on the late edge of normal and
he kept getting later and later until he was behind.
I don't think all these types of sites are designed for parents or lay
people. What I know about infant development, I think they are just
trying to identify more "at risk" infants and get them into therapy early
(like they do for preemies)
Clearly, their wording about parental attachment is a bit "rough", but I
have found many of these types of assesments (I'm working on my MA in
child psychology) to have deeper and more thorough explanations about
what behaviors they are looking at and why, when you get the training
use the screening tools in your practice.
On the other hand, they could be a bunch of a-holes, and I'm a moron for
defending them
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