will my son be 2 forever? | Autism PDD
i love this site. It has given me a chance to speak to people who understand the rollercoaster i am on. Some days i am so positve i make myself sick and other days i wonder if my sweet little boy will be 2 years old forever. It scares me so much to think that, not that i wouldn't love him always, no matter what. I guess i'm looking for that insight to the future to know what it will bring a year from now, and so on. I know that is unrealistic. The future could bring anything to anyone. I think i just need to write things down like this to put them in perspective.
Danielle
When I look back at how far my 8 y/o has come...I have nothing to offer you but hope. He was still basically non-verbal at 3 (5 words), but with ST and OT, he's come so far....he's been in the "let's make up for lost time" phase with talking for a few years now. Some things have and some things haven't changed, and as with all kids, they change so much all the time. Needs just differ as time goes by, depending really where they are and what needs to be accomplished at any particular time. Some issues for us appeared later, some goals were met, some have been there for years and we're still working on it. I can't believe sometimes how different all our children are...and the same in some aspects...so I really think it depends on them.
There is absolutely hope though, there is with all of us! Never underestimate the power of your children!!! And I believe it's Bonnie K who has on her tagline...the greatest therapy is love...I LOVE that Bonnie!!! Absolutely love it! (can you tell it's my new mantra?!?!?! Thank you! it gets me through some rough days where I start to think I'm not cut out for this!)
~Lesley
Lesley,Thank you for your inspiration! Today I was feeling what Danielle posted ... this morning Luke had a play-based dev't eval and the team of therapists and 1 devt ped said that Luke is functioning at a 12-15 mo level. *sigh* I was VERY upset, especially since today is Luke's 29-mo "birthday" ... can he REALLY be 14-17 mos BEHIND and will he EVER improve?!
Then I spoke with a good friend who reassured me (even though her kids are NT) that there could have been a lot of factors affecting Luke's low rating ... not the least of which were the fluid in his ears and the newborn critter who was demanding a LOT of my attention during the entire eval today! Now I look at it that 12-15 mos is the LOWEST he's at, certainly not reflecting his better days (he hasn't had many of those the past few weeks) nor reflecting where he'll remain. Then reading your post, Lesley, made me feel even better.
So thank you again! You ladies with the older children are really very inspirational and helpful for those of us with little kiddos. I so appreciate everything you write.
Kellie
Hey Danielle! A new dx is really stressful and alot goes through our minds.... Its understandable. An uncertain future and feeling like you have to do everything right now and without mistake makes it that much harder on us. Not being able to know what the future will hold for our kids is probably the hardest. No 2 kids on the spectrum are alike and where one may excell another one wont..... Therapy works different on each kid just as meds and everything else does too. Chances are good now for kids who receive Early Intervention treatment and therapy to make progress and live a fairly independent life . So try to hang in there.... he shouldnt be stuck in the terrible 2's forever.
Prognosis (long term outcome) of autism
As most of you know, ds hasn't been dx'd yet. So I don't know what is dev age is. I know that for his speech age they said I think 14 mths for expressive and 16 mths for receptive. I was pretty surprised by that in itself. It can be shocker to find out how behind your child really is. But ds has already progressed speech wise so there can definitely be improvements.
However some behaviors have gotten worse too. I hear on here a lot about 1 step forward 2 steps back. It seems when he progresses in one thing he regresses in something else many times. I just retook a couple of online tests and it was crazy to see how different I had to answer some of the questions compared to only a mth ago when I last took them. They still pretty much put him in the same place (the childbrain at moderate pdd-nos for example), but his score was higher because, though he progressed in some places, things he didn't do or rarely did last mth he is now doing often. This is hard to keep up with!
Don't fret. We all understand where you are coming from and I'm glad you found our board for support. I wish you the best of luck and, though it's hard at times, try to stay positive!
Amber
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