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	Your childs developmental age/real age Alex asd and anxiety is developmentally only 28-29 months, but is five years old. With his verbal being around 17-22 months currently and a increasing amount of toddler like tantrums. It gets hard to treat like a preschooler when in some reality he's still a baby. Any thoughts, btw: His therapist agree that he needs extra attention and we should push him to a point. But his stims seem to bring out the inner baby that still in him. For example he refuses to self feed some nights and gets overloaded easily typically asd trait I but it seems more frequent even before the birth of the baby. What should I do ?  What kinds of therapies is he getting and how much? Have you considered looking at dietary changes or biomedical treatments? -OT 2 1/2 hrs weekly -Speech 8 hrs weekly -Behavior 4 1/2 hrs weekly -Play therapy 2 hrs weekly -Physical Therapy  1 1/2 hrs weekly Therapy is done at school, his preschool class 50 minutes a day x3 weekly We have him on a gluton reduced diet {past 3 1/2 months} He's been on a much meds to reduce the lead in his system from leading positioning at around 19 months. We didn'yt have custody of him at that age, he's on dilantin for a seizure disorder which is under control. He's on an oral meds that has be to be forced up his bum to prevent bladder/bowel infections monthly. He's been on clonidine spellcheck for sleeping, works 80% time. During the summer therapy will be a total 12 hrs for OT, Speech and Behavior at home. He'll be going to preschool 3 days a week 9:00-11:30 Alex's daddy39616.3263657407 What do you mean meds to reduce the lead in his system?  What kind of meds?  Is he currently being chelated? You should try pulling casein (milk) 100% and see if that has a positive effect.  If it does, pull the rest of the gluten all together. Sounds like he is already getting a lot of therapy. The only other suggestion I can think of is parent training, which I think can be provided either through the school or look up CARD and your city to see if there is a CARD center near you, I think they can provide it too, free. It is amazing to me how when you carry through the same approaches at home that is used in therapies what a change there is. I would try to get a BCBA to give you a behavioral plan. The boys are 5 also, but in many ways they are actually 3 year olds, in testing various categories they come back anywhere from a 2 year old to a 5 year old, depending on the category. Social and emoitional and speech are the lowest. I fought with that feeding thing and the bottle for a very long time. He is manipulating you. If he can physically do it then he needs to do it. Finally I had to put the plate in front of them and ignore them. It was too automatic for me to help and that doesn't help them. Still interact, but if he indicates he wants to be fed ignore it. It might cause a meltdown, but I would ignore that too, and then praise him for calming down. That is a standard ABA approach. He probably sensed the change coming with a new baby and that is what has caused some increases in behavior. I really think you need someone to come in, access the situation, and give you plan, preferably a BCBA. But that is just my opinion. Also you can ask the therapists he is already seeing for suggestions. They work with him and know him. JulieA, He's antiboxides for lead that still in his system small amount. He went thru the chelated last August, which was around time he had his initial eval to see if he was on the spectrum. For close to six months doctors were saying he has autistic tendencies but wasn't on the spectrum. School therapy is not the  Same as private ones Some parent's do both. Tx. law know says ins. must cover therapies those with asd. I know Daniel cares a adhd label still at 12. He had St/ot both until now. The problem now is the puberty thing/behavior is worse now. I'm assuming the developmental age you gave was an average of the age of each individual category (speech & language, self-help, etc., etc.). Is there any one of those areas that he does excel in? If so, I'd recommend really going into cheerleader mode for the things he can do. I have often wondered, with C, whether he just gets sick and tired of never being "quite right" about anything...about how every single minute of the day he's being corrected or has class or a therapy or whatever. I do think it gets them down, even though they can't verbalize it that way and may not overtly think of it in those terms. So just for shoots and giggles, try having a couple/few hours a day where you're not "teaching" Alex and are just noticing what he can do and clapping and yay-ing just like he's an NT kid. Just take the pressure off for that period of time. You may see him relaxing a little and therefore, actually excelling in all areas. You say he sometimes self-feeds and sometimes doesn't. It could be that his brain is too disorganized at times to handle it, but again, pressure can cause that as well (or make it worse). If he can sometimes self-feed, then his self-feeding ability is in fact in there. He may be developmentally farther along than you think he is. We too often see C as a "toddler" (he will be five next month) due to the way he tantrums, or other things. But overall he is much older than that...we just never saw it. For instance, his self-help is right up there. He can choose his own clothing, dress himself, button buttons, etc., etc. He is also able to identify letters and numbers, count, and write his own name, which puts him at the place that some NT children are when they're about to begin kindergarten. I don't look at his developmental age average because his verbal alone--only about 50-ish words, and many of them garbled--would bring it so far down that we'd be very disheartened. Cognitive 4 yrs old Verbal   20 months knows up to 12-15 words {only uses 2-5 daily though} Emotionally 26-30 months Recogition of colors/faces 16-20 months Interactive Play   26-30 months Attention Span 26-30 months Facial Recogition 30 months He has difficultly dressing and undressing, he finally starting to wash himself w/o our help. He gets very frustrated when you ask him to follow directions. But he's starting to get better when you ask him to go get x toy he can do it. His favorite toy is Geotrax. He can prounce Porsche in the right way, loves riding in daddies Porsche 911 btw!
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