oh, the highs and lows | Autism PDD
Big hugs - that was a great story - even though you had to play 52 CD pick up ;)
OH that is sweet...not the mess but the sorry and affection afterward. Thanks for sharing.
Karrie
It is so nice to get the hugs. BY the end of the day the lows start to pile up but the new day brings new highs. In the end it all balances out somehow. (:Sounds like he was only trying to help you get some exercise in for the day--picking up CDs may equal out to a couple of squats or lunges
.I had a wonderful high on Friday, my son came home from school with a note
from his teacher asking me if I knew he could tie his shoes because he has been doing it so well at school. My son is 14 and has never been able to tie his shoe laces, he just says "Tie my shoe please", well we have been working on it for years and at his IEP meeting, he teacher asked if there was anything we wanted them to work on and I laughed and said, could you help us teach him to tie his shoe. Well, they have been working on it and he can do it. I asked him to show me, at first he said "Stop", which is wonderful because before he only grunted when he didn't want to do something. I asked again and he took the shoe and tied it for me like it was a piece of cake. Yes, I cried, but they were tears of joy. He and his brother amaze me each day. I called everyone I could think of to tell them the great news.
Mark, that's a great story.
I'm
just curious, how old is your son and what is his diagnosis?
Jacob does that arms-to-the-side thing, too when he hugs, he'll also
bend his head into you.
Mom to Jacob,my son (14) does the same thing when I go to hug him, he puts his arms to his side and bends his head into me. Same when I give him a kiss, he puts his head down so I can kiss the top of it.
One day out of the blue he walked up to me put his arms around me and gave me a hug. I'll never forgot that day.
[QUOTE=JillNJake]Mark, that's a great story.
I'm
just curious, how old is your son and what is his diagnosis?
Jacob does that arms-to-the-side thing, too when he hugs, he'll also
bend his head into you.
[/QUOTE]34 months, suspected PDD-NOS, but not diagnosed yet. He'll also offer his cheek if you ask for a kiss (tho we get the lips on occasion). Looking forward to that first unprompted, "arms around the neck" hug! Ain't had one yet...
[QUOTE=mark_dad]
34 months, suspected PDD-NOS, but not diagnosed yet. He'll also offer his cheek if you ask for a kiss (tho we get the lips on occasion). Looking forward to that first unprompted, "arms around the neck" hug! Ain't had one yet...
[/QUOTE]
When we ask Jake for a kiss, he'll put his cheek near your face and kiss the air.
Understand! It's kinda cute, but we long for "real" affection.
On the other "low" side of my day, I spent some time reading up on Fragile X, and have started to wonder about it. Our son does have prominent ears... ugh... somebody make me stop surfing the web!
You can do a blood test on fragile x. Alot of neuro's will do that just to rule it out.
Tammy
The way my 2 1/2 autsic son shows me effection is he comes to me picks his little armes up so that I woulf pick him up and when I do he puts his armes around me and puts his head on my neck When ever he does that I want to cryHollie
Marks-dad
you sound alot like us the internet is our saviour and or tormentor i have looked at fragile x and it is on my ever growing list of things to ask at neuro in november did you know though that with fragile x alot of the physical characteristics don't become apparent until later in life ?(round about age 10 i believe) so maybe your little one does just have prominent ears bless him.We are asking about jack because he does has a long face (as does dh surprise surprise)mind you i am quite a pessamistic person i expect the worse there is logic behind this though if i'm expecting the worst then everything is a bonus
Dee
We are probably going to test for Fragile X. We know of no family history of it on my side of the family, but my wife is not on great terms with her bio dad (he left her mom when she was an infant). Maybe on that side there's concern.Of course, our greatest concern with Fragile X is also our greatest concern when considering our son's cord prolapse during birth... mental retardation. How are supposed to know if a nearly 3 yo. is mentally retarded? What are the warning signs? How can I test his IQ?
He can count to 20, knows his alphabet and colors (primary, secondary, and more) and has a vocabulary of 200+ words, but... doubts remain, if only because of the speech, communication and hyperactivity (though I question whether we should really consider him hyperactive... he's 2 after all) issues.
Of course, these are all questions for a neurologist, not a message board, but... they are the questions I just can't stop asking...
We just had Luke tested for Fragile X (at the behest of his developmental pediatrician), but I don't think he shows any characteristics for it.
Kellie
MarksDad,
I agree with Kellie but what do I know either? I do know that my two older NT children did not count to 20 at 2 years old though. LOL Adam is 3 1/2 and as far as I know he doesn't have MR and he doesn't count that high. He will count to 5 and I still don't know if he actually knows what he is doing when he does it. I think it's more of echolalia. At two years old Adam hardly had any language skills. Mosty one word wants. Rarely he used 2 words together to communicate at that age. It's always good for our children to be tested for fragile X as a just in case. I do know what you mean about the internet though. I often tell myself that a bit of information can be a scary thing. LOL
Karrie
My son can count, knows the alphabet, learns to read & spell words easily, memorizes things quickly, and knows a LOT of words. I kind of ruled out the mental retardation on my own but should I be concerned? My ds has more appts with professionals coming up in the next couple of months so I will have my questions answered by them...but to all of you who know so much by your experiences, should I be concerned about MR?
He does know a lot of nouns. He knows "ball" but if I say "Noah, bring mommy the ball" he is totally clueless to what I'm saying. We are going to buy him those sign language videos that others are raving about and hopefully that will help us communicate better. I was wondering though if a child doesn't understand spoken language can they understand and learn sign language?
He is sweet and lovable to his family but to other kids he is still socially awkward. I can tell he wants to play with other kids but just can't figure out how. He has no clue about personal space. He will get right in their face, try to grab their hand or try to get them to pick him up if it's a bigger kid. Or he will go up to them and start reading the writing on their shirts. Today a woman that my dh works with (who doesn't know he has autism) tried to talk to my ds and he made an attempt at some form of language but none of us could understand one word he said. I was so proud of him though for trying (plus it was really cute). It's times like these that I feel so good about him because he hasn't had any form of treatment yet and I can tell how determined he is to do things.
Our son just pulled a pile of CDs off our music shelf. BIG crash. Lots of plastic pieces everywhere. I yelled at him about it, which is something I rarely do. He just laughed. After all, look at all the shiny circles on the floor!
Then, I think accidentally, he picked up a case and bonked my forehead with it as he lifted it. It *hurt*. I made the angriest face I could muster and said loudly "THAT HURT." He looked at me with what appeared to be real empathy and said "I'm sorry," and moved over to me with his arms at his side (his way of asking for a hug).
Oy vey, the highs and the lows.
Ah... apparently I put this topic in the wrong forum. Sorry about that!
Yeah, I now realize that retardation is not a concern. We had EI out for a second visit yesterday and our son did better than my wife and I thought he would. He does great in almost every area, but has HUGE social interaction and social language deficits. They're suspecting sensory integration issues as the culprit. Looks like I'll be reading "The Out of Sync Child" and "The Out of Sync Child Has Fun" after all! THose books have been recommended to me countless times, but our son's issues never seemed "sensory" to me... until I had sensory issues explained to me.
Incresingly, I'm suspecting he could have Aspergers, since he has language, but it's not pragmatic.
Mark_dad,
Those are great books. My daughter has overcome numerous sensory issues with the help from those two books. They have made a great difference.
The highes and lows are something. Last night I was ironning all of my daughter's clothes because it was the only way I could get some peace to watch the PGA Championship. Amanda liked the water bottle I was using and went and got one of her own. She thought it would be cute to spray my wife but as she went towards her to do it she tripped on a pillow that was on the floor and jabbed my wife in the eye. It was cute up until that point. A word my little one does know is "Sorry." They hugged for a few minutes while we made sure my wife wouldn't need an eye patch.
)
and realize that if anything the PDD has shown me EVERYTHING what
parenthood is supposed to be about -- perhaps even moreso! LOL I
think maybe our lows are lower and our highs are higher than those with
just NT kids, but I guess no one's kids 'turn out' the way they'd
planned ahead of time, do they? My high and low for today: this morning Luke completely ignored me. I tried getting right in his face (I must've really annoyed him ... LOL) and he would NOT make but fleeting eye contact with me. I asked for a kiss ... begged him (nicely :) for a kiss, to no avail. Well, about 2 hours later, while changing a poopy diaper, he pulled me down to his face and gave me a HUGE smacker right on the lips!
Then he looked right into my eyes and smiled. That was awesome.
Copyright Autism-PDD.net