progress between ages five and six? | Autism PDD

My son will turn 6 in September, his Social skills have Improved alot,  But his Anxiety and behaviours ,stimming and sensory stuff have increased ,he will start school in September.

Linda

I didn't notice anything special at that age, just the stair-step development that my son has always had.  From age 8-1/2 to 9 and continuing, however, he's had amazing progress.

 

T had a "Blossoming," observed by teachers, therapists, and parents, independently, right after turning 6!  She regressed right before it and suddenly WHAM, she "got" everything from the ENTIRE YEAR, almost, and was much, much more sociable ... Thanks all.  The girls had their best year developmentally this year (between ages four and five).  I'm hoping that this development continues apace, or even accelerates this coming year.  I guess that Rimland (or whoever) quote is more obscure than the post I had read implied to me :)

Well, we all know that there is no truism for all kids on the spectrum. But, I will say this one held true for my ds. However, we also put him on fish oil the day after he turned 5 - so hard to say what happened there.

Ds has made incredible progress this year - although we did a lot of intensive intervention services as well. Lots of PT, OT and he got group speech at ECSE for social skills. Also got social skills training at Head Start for 2 hours a week as a whole class and this was implemented throughout the curriculum.

He didn't go to kindergarten (we held him out due to summer birthday) so I can't answer that. But, he is going this year to all-day and I hope it will go well (getting nervous now!).

My boy had a push right around 4. But 5-7 has not been so great. I think
in part it depends on your kids sensetivities which often change right
around age 6. My ds was always hyposensetive but now he his going
hypersensetive. In some ways he is 'waking up' more but he is also a lot
more whiney, meltdowns, defensive. But if you have a hypersensetive kid
who will start to mellow out it might be a true blessing for your kid.

The girl'll be five next month...  Five is sort of a scary age - they're really kids now, not little kids - BIG kids.  Expectations will be higher and some things will be harder to explain, harder to deny, etc.  Tough time.

I was reading something, somewhere, a few days ago, and someone made the comment that some expert (might have been Rimland) had made the observation that many ASD kids make marked progress between the ages of five and six.  Other people on the thread acknowledged this factoid, as if it was a known thing, but no reference was provided and I could not find the source of the comment during an internet trawl.

How has this age gone for you folks who have been through it?  Was their lots of progress after five - during kindergarten?  Has anyone here heard that development between the ages of five and six is often pronounced for our kids?  I know there are no magical ages, of course - just wondering what's conventional wisdom.

 

We had progress between 4 and 5...a stay at 5 to 6 and flat out regression between 6 and 7. Seems to be on the upswing academically right now, but who knows. With the summer school they gave us I pulled him out and he's in a mainstream daycare for summer camp...not going at well as in the beginning. He usually does ok there for SHORT periods of time, but summers and breaks are hard. He also knows that he will be starting at a new school (autistic program) so I think he's nervous about that. Nothing could be WORSE than last years program. They didn't teach him a thing and he was getting frustrated doing homework at daycare with his helper since he didn't know the stuff and she was so good...she was trying to teach it to him. OMG! It was awful...finally I told her I said if he doesn't know it, they aren't teaching it to him there is no point in both of you getting upset over it...he's repeating the first grade. Hi Fred,

My son is turning 6, and has had intensive therapies since 2years and 8 months.
I can remember noticing a definite change in his awareness of people at around age 4.  Although he still lacked appropriate social skills, he was more interested, and he sought me out more.  He will be entering first grade in september, and I feel that his kindergarten program (intensive ABA/VB) really helped him to "listen" and follow direction a lot better.  He can follow several one and some 2 step commands, such as "put your cup in the sink", "throw that in the garbage","pick up your spoon", etc., where last year, he would not have done those things.

I think with our kids that progress is gradual, and sometimes hard to notice, until you look back a year and say "WOW!! What a change!""  I have family coming up that hasn't seen him in a year, so it will be interesting to hear what they see.

Take care!!

nakama

Great question as Anthony will be 5 next month, too.  Although, Fred, I've never gotten the impression that they improve greatly between ages 5-6.  I have the impression that however affected they are by their autism at that age is a good "prognosis" for how affected they will be by their autism for the rest of their lives.  KWIM? 

With that being said, I'd love to hear that great strides will be made in the next year.  That would be promising!!

I will tell you that IMHO Mason has made the most gains between this time...it seemed a lot of his stimming decreased and the sensory got better, it's still a problem in some areas, but definitely got better.

His learning and his speech definitely splurged!!

On the downside it made me see a lot of what was still there...some of the behaviors that he does, like always needing to hug people or lick

Plus the speech stands out A LOT more...he has made such great gains in this area but he still sounds like a toddler when he talks, so obviously that is noticed a lot more.

Kindergarten was a very difficult year for Mason, but even with all the problems I was so happy to see that there was still so much progress.

Sarah best year was last year at age 6 in kindergarten everyday all day~I feel all those role models helped her to gather all the  "do's & dont's" and social language..she practices on us at home:)

Your girls are gonna do great..get ready!

Hello,

My son is now 10 years old and doing exceptionally well.  I am an ABA therapist but I have found that what works for one child may not work for another.  I babied my son for a long time and I had to step back some and let him grow.  He used to speak and then he lost it all.  He made sounds from this point, started going to school at the age of three and started calling me mommy at the age of four.  He is diagnosed with Autism.  At one point, it was severe, then as he grew it became milder and now he is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.  I am affraid because he will be in middle school soon and I really don't understand what the schools offer our childre after elementary school.  I am thinking about home schooling since his socialization skills have progressed extremely well.  I am hoping to relocate to Charlotte NC next year, but could someone please advise me about the services their for single parent families with children with special needs.  I am moving from Orangeburg SC.  The services here are wonderful until the children get to middle school and that is so sad. 

 

Tameka,

I dont know about services in NC..but wanted to say how impressed and inspired I was reading your son going from severe autism to now aspergers!! What an accomplishment & I know you must of worked extremely hard to get him this far..We did ABA in home for 3 years full time and and it completely changed our daughter..she would probably get the asperger label now..she has a ways to go socially but hopeful:) Good luck with middle school..private school might be nice..smaller classrooms~we have magnet school schools here starting in middle school that are like public school that perform like private..smaller classroom and and higher enrichment type learning..

Shelly, I must say that being realistic, a lot of children that I have worked with that have gone on to middle school are still on second and third grade levels.  Sometimes I feel that if the teacher in middle school saw that a child with special needs is not progressing as they should on their level, at this point the teacher should focus on the child's sronger subjects and begin teaching self help skills so at least the child would be able to take care of theirself when they get older instead of focusing on something thats going to make the child get frustrated or regress.

Shelly,

I am glad your daughter is doing well.  What type of school program is she in?

All I have heard is that they must meet a certain amount of progress by 7 - 8 as the elasticity of the brain is at its highest peak until that age, whcih is why they can assess a lot about the future when your child goes thru extensive testing between 7 and 8.hmmm... more evidance to suggest at least to me that this theripy helps most kids by allowing them to progress years ahead of a kid who never received theripy, and that assuming they r mild.

I ended up repeating second grade, i was not even mainstreamed until 5th and 6th grade, so i developed it sounds like years slower then most of these kids, obviously due to lack of any service, but still... as long as it took in the end i got much better. I firmly beleive them understanding how to socialize better will make their lives much easyer then mine during the school years, all of the school years. Maby make more friends, do better in school, and hopefully not screw up as much as i did in high school, hopefully they will be able to avoid hangin with the wrong crowd because they will have more common sence.Wow - I can hardly believe they are only 4-5 months older than Bug...

That said - Bug made remarkable progress this year (the last six months, specifically) - which I completely attribute to a great preschool program, and a small amount of speech therapy/social skills (within his classroom - services provided to groups - not individually).

I think what I heard regarding this (and I believe it was Tzoya that posted it) was that five/Kindergarten is a good reference point to future outcome...  Meaning - if your child passes for NT at five - they might very well continue to pass as NT???  Am I remembering wrong?  Gosh I want Bug to get there.  I know he'll always be on the spectrum - but I'd love it if he could be "just quirky", KWIM?



Moderngnome (maybe it is my real name ;))

Big time academic leap, but I think the same is true for all kids - not just spectrum kids.  They get new environments with kindergarten - not just one classroom, but PE, art lab, computer lab, music, cafeteria, etc.  Different teachers for each of those subjects, plus the librarian...all these experiences and helpful adults - each with his or her own style of communicating - make their lives just so enriched.

I also think their stamina, and therefore attention span, is more solid.  Four year olds, regarless of whether they nap or not, get wiped out in mid afternoon.  Five year olds still konk out or get crabby.  The strength a six year old has has got to be helpful in overall advancement.

They're gonna shine!

Fred:

Tyler will be 6 in November and this last year was the year that the most progress has been made as far as speech, language, pragmatic stuff and reciprocal conversation goes. He has attended a LEAP preschool, [5 HF ASD kids, 8 NT kids per class] and will start kindergarten this month. He is mainstreamed with the lowest level of Autism support, unless he shows the need for more help, then he will get it because our local school is the base of the district's ASD support staff.

Every day he "gets" more and more things. Because of his advanced reading, writing, art, science, and math abilities, his IEP includes high level challenges to hold his interests. The school district wants this because they said that his ability to grasp new things rapidly should be used and not let to go dormant.

I still can't attempt to get him to learn to tie his shoes though. Probably because he won't wear anything but sandals until he starts school. His is like our little apostle Fred,

Just chiming in to say that we had an explosion of speech, both expressive and pragmatic, between the ages of 5-6.  He also became much more socially outgoing and appropriate.  I would say that between 5 and 6 he went from being obviously on the spectrum (though still undiagnosed for a few more years), to blending and passing as NT under most circumstances (boy scouts and soccer not being one of said circumstances).  Of course passing for NT in an undiagnosed child of this age was both a blessing and a curse, because it made obtaining an accurate dx during this early time of the autism explosion and it's subsequent education and understanding, all the more difficult.
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