He played chase! | Autism PDD

That is so wonderful:) It is a very good sign of great things to come! YOU are so lucky to have sons so close in age..I had a sister 10 mos. younger than I and we were inseparable..I had a lot of autism sx at age 3~no words and to myself... but my sis was pretty insistant in making me do things:) Hope they keep on playing:)

My son was diagnosed about 4 weeks after my second son was born. At the time, I didn't realize how great it was that I had a second child. I was thinking, "why didn't I wait". I was worried that having a 2nd one that close would only take away time that my older son needed. I'm not sure we would have planned the second one if I knew my older one had autism.

As hard as it has been for my older son this year, I think having a brother was one of the best things for his development. So, yes I'm glad it happend before I had a chance to think too much.

He is also spnontaneously hugging his brother now, which is a beautiful thing to watch.

That is great. Chase is still my DD's favorite game to play with other kids. Only she never chases them, she wants to be chased, lol. Having a sibling is awesome for AS kids. My son has made a world of difference for my daughter.I'm so happy for you! That is a wonderful development!This is wonderful news and it gives me hope. It sounds like everyone had a good time.

I'm so exicited about how my 3 year old son initiated playing with his 17 month old brother. Until now I was happy that he progressed to tolerating him in the same room.

He will run and wait for his brother to try to catch up, laugh his head off and take off again. They've done this several times over the past week. His poor little brother gets tired, but he will call him (which he has never done before) and the game begins again. He completely intiated the game and it will last for more than 20 minutes nonstop. Talk about opening circles of communication (Floortime)! I've never seen so much eye contact between my two boys and I've never seen them have fun together like this. He has always done well with adults, never with kids.

It gives me hope that he might someday enjoy playing with his peers. We have been working hard on social skills with peers in his AVB sessions, playing with his brother and a social skills group. We've seen progress and he is able to take turns and play all of the typical preschool games. I just don't usually see this kind of enjoyment like he has when playing chase with his brother. I know it sounds silly to be excited about him playing chase, but it is very big to me and shows me we're doing something right.

Thanks for reading.

Hooray!!!
Not silly at all. It is twice as nice because your son finds both the game and
his little brother reinforcing. It is fun for him so he may find his little brother
fun to be with as well. My sons favorite outside game is tag/freeze tag. Tom loves his baby brother. He hugs him and kisses him with his forehead and laughs at him.

For those of you with older kids how did you help their social skills along? How did you encourage situations like this? Did it just happen naturally as they were ready?

I want to keep going in this direction--this was a big step and I want to support it.