deflating moment! | Autism PDD
catmille - that 2.5 year old was VERY advanced in language though - keep that in mind.
There is a wide range as to how our kids with autism communicate as well. And we are all doing the best we can for our kids. We have never been able to do ABA for our son because we could not afford it privately at per hour. At this point, in all-day kindergarten, it is a matter of no time to do that. Ds is very tired when he gets home - it is sometimes a chore to get him to do his homework. I can't imagine trying to get him to go to ABA or even any other private therapies. Maybe as the year goes on, it will get better - but I think the work is only going to get more difficult so I doubt it. Do I feel guilty that I'm not doing more - you bet! But, ds also needs time to be a kid and play and have some downtime. Sometimes he learns as much (if not more) from just doing that. Playing with his NT sister and/or his NT friends down the street is always a lesson on social skills and play skills. Even though my dd and the twins are all younger than ds, he can learn from them!
Fred I think your girls are doing very well. They are learning andblossoming before your very eyes. You should be so proud. Making sure
they stay on track is a very good thing.
My two oldest children were speaking in sentences at age 1, simple but in
sentences. Were they advanced in language? yes.
The ABA questions is a hard one. My own asd son was unavailable to
learning before he started ABA. His delays in language was so profound
that had he not had ABA he would not be in the same place he is today.
Had we not found funding and self funded other therapies, he would in all
probability be very affected and with a lot of behaviors. At age 4 he was
probably at the same place that my oldest children were at age 1.5yrs.
He is at the point right now where alot of children do stop ABA. I do not
because I do know the types of demands that will be placed upon him in
the next couple of years. AT first glance, he looks good! I think if any of
you would spend 15 minutes talking with him you would know that he is
on the spectrum. I have given up the hope that he will be like my two
oldest in terms of functioning. What my son has, is good solid skills, and
we are working on his ability to function despite his disabilities. He has
worked so very hard and I for one want to stop the comparisons.
My mother told me when I was a child that there will always be someone
prettier than you, skinnier than you, smarter than you, richer than you.
What you need to worry about is being happy with yourself.
My four year old is incredibly articulate, and also makes thought provoking commentary & questions. He will bring up events that happened when he was barely two years old & recall details I've forgotten. His sense of humor and compassion are also way ahead of the curve, and at 3 he was admitted to the public schools gifted program.
That being said, NT is also a spectrum! NT kids are all over the place!
Kindergarten sucks because of the comparing, believe me, I know - we did it last year. You finally are around a gaggle of NT children and its hard not to "measure" the differences. But you have to STOP YOURSELF from comparing, or you'll go nuts.
Hold on to the fact that the room-mom had zero idea that Abbie was on the spectrum a week or so ago!
I think you ran into a very advanced child too, but I can understand the comparing. I have a very advanced 2.4 year old, she seemed to be born that way. Her speech is not that of a 3 to 4 year old, but everything else is. Her speech probably is about that of a 2 year old and is really emerging now, but it is very social speech, all about communicating unlike her brothers who are just starting to have social speech. The way she carries herself, her social skills, the way she acts, no one guesses that she's 2, everyone says 3 or 4 and then get wide eyes when I say 2. She's the size of a 4 year old too. She goes everywhere with me including to all the therapies and school and she sits and plays nicely during all the meetings and I always get I have never seen a 2 year old act like that all the time, she acts like a 4 year old. She went to a give parents a break at a local daycare and she stood out in there even though they were all the same age, she looked and acted so much older. I got comments from the workers about what a pleasure she is. While Nikolas was down the hall screaming cause he wanted to go on the side of the room that was blocked off. It is very hard not to compare them but I try very hard not to or I well get really depressed.Thanks, Snoop - I think it might have made me feel a little better, but I think the woman knew that her daughter was "advanced" or whatever, because she asked me how old my girls were, and guessed '5', and no one would have guessed that mine were the older children - so, I'm guessing she knew. She was very friendly and nice, no problems with her, it just made me second guess things again.
I mean, are they really that behind - still? I thought they had done some catching up since three, but if how the compared to this child was any indication, they have only fallen further behind. Of course, that brings up all the issues of therapy and interventions - we really don't do anything for them because they made it to "mainstream" in kindergarten - so, aside from what little they get through the school, they're not in any sort of intensive program, and I know that many of the parents of kids their age on this board are still going hard with intensive stuff. I let myself get talked out of the need for intensive interventions and started to believe that they had actually come into the typical range (they test in the low-normal range for language now, though their very large vocabulary offsets their very low scores in some of the more pragmatic language subtests), but if that girl was typical, I've been seriously deluding myself.
But, by the sounds of it, she was just a very advanced child, and their still is a range, even at 4.5-5.0 years old, so I guess I shouldn't sweat it.
You're all correct in that the girls are progressing, and it's really silly to compare them to other children, especially ones who are clearly precocious. In any case, there's nothing really that can be done about it - we can't do much more than what we're doing - other than pull them out of school and put them in some ABA program, which their mother would not even consider for a second, so I guess I just need to learn to let these little deflating moments pass without giving them much thought - hard though, you understand.
I don't think ABA would do anything to help their speech along any further Fred ... but maybe more pull-out for ST? Nick never had ABA so I really don't know all that much about it, but his developmental pediatrician told me that after the age of 5, kids age out of ABA having any effect.
Nicky is finally starting to use correct pronouns but still really has no abstract language or comprehension. I believe that will come with his continued ST every day.
fred,
Are they going to all-day kindergarten? Or can you get them speech in the other half of the day? Do they qualify for speech since they are in the low-normal range? We haven't had ds tested, but they are giving him social skills training and the SLP works on pragmatics with him once a week as well. He's never had a language delay. But his IEP from his previous school included speech because we noticed a disfluency (stutter) for a short period at the beginning of the year and the SLP kindly kept that in the IEP so this school would be required to at least give him speech in the beginning - while we re-work his IEP.
Here in Minnesota, I have been told that if you have an educational diagnosis of autism, they are required to give you some speech. Regardless of the child's level of functioning. It makes sense since autism is mostly a social and communication disorder!
But, I don't think you're deluding yourself. I think the girls are doing great from what I've seen on video. But you are their dad and you are going to worry. And, you are fred - and thus, you're going to worry!
My oldest was also in a mainstream Kindergarten class, and no one visiting the classroom would have known he was on the spectrum. However, if they spent time with him they would have seen the difficulties he has with pragmatics and social skills. I am really thankful his teacher and the school were aware of his issues and kept him in speech for pragmatics as well as a social skills class. He could have easily slipped through the cracks.
We just got a mid-quarter progress report. Academically he's doing great. However, the teacher did note he has difficulty following VERBAL instructions.
Thanks folks - yes, the do still get speach (actually, language) therapy at school - they have no articulation problems whatsoever. We also continue with a private session, though no one's following up at home, so it's really just a waste of time. The private language therapist recommends that the school give them 2X30 minutes of language therapy, one in small group and one in large group/social setting. She does not think that 1:1 therapy is going to do much more for them. The school currently gives Abbie 2X20 minutes and Evie 2X15 minutes language therapy.
About six months ago, I contacted Meredith college who runs a Lovaas style ABA program and is a replication site, and they sent out a pair of consultants. They played with the girls for a while, and in the end, concluded that the cost of an ABA program would probably not justify what they could actually do for the girls at this point.
That said, there are several kids on this board who's language is at least as developed as the girls and are still getting ABA, so, yeah, I still wonder.
And yes, this is an all day kindergarten. Abigail is really picking up on some nice skills - she's using very nice social approaches to other kids now, and is even busting out some idioms that I never taught her (for example, when I asked her if she was responsible for a big mess in the living room, she hesitated and responded, "kind of..." - she picked that up from somewhere - this was not something she was directly taught.
Evie is less social and isn't making as much social and language progress yet. It's really strange what's going on. At 3.0, Abigail was so much more impaired - at one point, it was thought that Evie was not autistic but Abigail was. Two years later, Evie is clearly the more affected by autism, although she still performs better on cognative assessments, so go figure.
I worked at Head Start with 3, 4 and 5 year olds. There is a WIDE range at that age. Some kids were very articulate and others were not at all. I have also worked with my kids my whole social work career and I would say the same. In addition to volunteering in my ds' mainstream classroom for 2 years and also going to my dd's pre-school classroom.
While they don't usually have the extent of communication issues our kids have, a lot of them have issues. Someone in our district told me that 1/3 of the kindergarteners were in speech. I don't know if that's true or not - but a lot have articulation difficulties and some have communication issues as well.
Honestly fred, I think you ran into a very advanced child. Whenever someone asks me how old my daughter is and then react in shock (she too is very tall for her age and speaks WAY above the "typical" 3 year old range) - I always make sure to say that when she had her pre-school screening that she was very advanced for her age. I only say that if the parent starts to have that look that says, "Oh God, my kid is SOOOOO way behind!" I tell them that there is a huge range at that age and not to compare kids. If they continue to ask questions and seem worried, I just say that it never hurts to get a child screened and it might allay their worries. I try to strike a balance of making sure they don't needlessly worry but also that they don't ignore a potential issue with speech.
Would it have made you feel better if the mom had said that her daughter had tested way above the norm for speech fred? Or would it have seemed like bragging? Because I don't want to do that either! I just want to make sure that people don't compare their kids to mine and think their child is behind, when in reality they aren't. Been there, done that. I compare my ds all the time - it's an easy trap to fall into.
But remember, your girls have come SUCH a long way and have made awesome progress. You and your dw need to take a lot of credit for that. They are doing fin in mainstream kindergarten and that is huge in and of itself!
Fred,
I volunteered in the kindergarten classroom a few times last year and there was a HUGE range of skills and abilities. R's teacher had a thing going where each week on Wednesday 2 parents would come into the class and the kids would take turns picking out a book and reading to one of the parents, who would then log the book and a postive comment in the child's reading journal. I did this twice, so each time I did the reading with 8 - 10 kids. There were some kids who could barely sound out the first letters of each word in the simplest of picture books, and other kids who could read very advanced books and chat about them afterward with great verbal skills.
You ran into a child that is very verbally gifted. That is not the benchmark you should be measuring with. Spend a day in the classroom and you'll see a very wide range in everything.
catmille, the first time the light bulb really went on for me was at 3.0, when Abigail, especially, was still jargoning and talking in simple phrases (directed at no one most of the time). An acquaintence with a kid one month older than the girls drove up to us at stop light. The 3.0 year old rolled down his window and said, "We saw you back there" as he was laughing and pointing - past tense, pronounds, abstract time reference, etc - it was so, so different from what the girls were doing at the time. Even so, it was still almost a yaer before the autism dx (though we did get the DD coding at 3.0 and started therapy).I have to say that ABA does help with this. I'm sure that speech therapy and ABA practices are quite similar in this respect except for the data tracking and stricter methodology. In ABA we actually take an are of interest with our son (currently cars, especially jeeps) and teach him to converse appropriately about them in a back and forth manner. Then we work on generalizing that to other topics etc.
I first knew my son had some kind of delay when our 2 1/2 year old neighbor boy came up to him and said something like "You can't play on my tractor, that's for big boys. Only I can go on it cause you're not a big boy" and my son said he wanted to go on it and this kid just blew him out of the water again saying he couldn't have a turn and all the reasons why. Bratty - yes but, It was so different from my son's scripted language and my son was a year older.
ABA is expensive and we're fortunate that we can have the option. It does take all of our money though. Also, ds is only in preschool for the first time this school year so we have more time available. I'm thinking these things are also something we all work on with our kids anyway, just not as intense as in therapy. We teach memorized answers to questions ets. I just wish that there was more therapy avail with more funding!I'd say the language range is pretty varied at that age. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who's daughter is 6 months older than Jacob. I heard this child talking beautifully in the background and really complimented him on his daughter's verbal ability. I guess I'm the first person who's ever done that because my friend said, "I never really paid attention to it before, but yeah...she's smart." Oh the little things that parents of NT kids take for granted. They don't know what they are missing out on.
ETA: It sounds to me like that little girl had some advanced verbal ability going on.
fred, I think there is a wide range. And some kids have "off" days and "on" days. The twins that live down the street from us - there are some days that I actually worry about THEIR communication skills more than my ds' as I can't figure out AT ALL what the point of what they are saying is. And then there are days they have an adult-type conversation with me. I have to say that is how ds is as well.
My 3 year old dd talks like an average 6 year old, except for her articulation (still working on "s" and "r" sounds). She uses words like complicated, particularly, etc. She talks in really long sentences and asks questions of adults about what they think (sometimes she does this with kids, but kids her age don't often know how to answer her so she doesn't do it as much). Then every once in a while, she'll come up to me and say, "Hungry!" She is imitating Max from Max and Ruby (and she KNOWS this drives me crazy!
I think the girls are doing fine and you happened to run into one little smartie! Enjoy the girls' progress and success!
These children were so beatiful - her little sister, who was maybe two or three spoke pretty well, too. One thing that was kind of funny - I don't know if it's because of their heritage, or whatever (they were from Senegal, at least the mother was), but both of these girls were deathly afraid of dogs. People were walking by with their dogs, and each time, both girls would freak.
At one point, a person walking some large, brindle coated dog came into the park, and I kid you not, the older girl screamed "Tiger!" and literally fell off the swing, got up and ran as fast as she could in the other direction! Poor thing!
The younger girl game and wrapped her arms around me and just hugged for comfort- it was so sweet - something the girls have never done.
Anyways, after she calmed down is when we got talking about the dogs. I shouldn't compare like that, but it's hard sometimes - you all understand.
write their name, are at time hard to understand, use the wrong
pronouns, typically wear their shoes on the wrong feet....I could go on but
you get the picture. And they are fine - not advanced, not behind. Either
the girl was older or she was was brilliant or both.
Your girls sound like they have been doing great, don't let one interaction
with a future nobel prize winner deflate you'
'Thanks Micki - she really was 4.5. I was incredulous - thought she was joking around, but her motehr confirmed it. I knew one other child like this. A neighborhood girl - came to the bus stop a couple of times because her older sister rode the bus with my son. Anyway, I had also assumed that this girl was 5 or 6 (this was a year ago, when the girls were just turning four) - she was giant - used to run around with my son and she was nearly as fast, large, and coordinated as him - spoke like an older child, etc.
Her mother, being particularly tone-def, one day came up to me and said, "Isn't it interesting how the kids mature at such different rates!" (meaning, look at how advanced my four year old is compared to yours). Last time I talked with her - but it was the same sort of thing.
I mean, I know I'm not completely in denail about this, because I do see other kids the girl's age, and they are not all six inchses taller and having conversations like second graders. I wonder if there's, like, the opposite of autism -like, accelerated development or something.
I was talking with this child at the park - big girl, only a couple of inches shorter than my seven year old son and frankly looked about his age. She was talking about dogs, and how her dad didn't want to get her one because she was scared of them, etc. etc. - really just a normal conversation you'd have with a school aged kid. I assumed she was six or so. Then she told me she was 4 (and that her birthday was in January). I couldn't believe it. Wow - talk about deflating, in light of the current successes the girls have been having in kindergarten. To rub it in even further, she was of west African descent and was bi-lingual (her mother had an African accent, so I assume non-native to America). She also ran with perfect coordination, and my girls looked like toddlers trying to run after this child, who was six months younger than them. Ugh.
Do you think this girl was 'typical' of 4.5 year olds? Have I had my head in that deep of a hole? I've chatted with a few five year olds recently (took some courage on my part, as I've been guilty of avoiding interacting with kids the girls age until the past couple months), and while speaking better than the girls, It was clear that these were young kids - I wouldn't have mistaken any of them for six year olds, but maybe I was just catching these kids at off times or they were shy or something.
Is this the norm for typical 4.5 year old kids - talking this beautifully - or is there still a pretty big range in language at that age, ranging from kids who don't speak all that well to kids who speak as well as first graders? The other thing that struck me was the size difference. Like I said, she was nearly as large as my seven year old, who is in the 50th percentile for seven year olds in size. The girls aren't small, either. I don't know, she just seemed more like my son's age than the girls, but I confirmed her age with her mother!
Abby gets speech at daycare twice a week, But what I think has been really making a difference is she goes to a social and sensory intergration group which focus on helping children to use their sense, sight, sound,taste, smell , hearing to execute appropriate response. It also teaches them to use their pragmatic skills , like eye contack, problem solving , interpretation and response to emotions in order to converse and socialize with their educators and peer. There is a speech and occupational therapist there. She just started this in Sept. I think this is where most of her progress has come from.
A little funny ironic story...Sarah doesnt express herself so well with peers at all and my biggest issue for school was the huge influx of ESL kids being fed into the school because of all the social skills we taught her would be pretty nil if they didnt know english (they share PE, Art, recess, music....guess what? These kids are the ones that gravatate to her and she doesnt feel overwhelmed socially because they speak english slow enough for her to understand and she can keep up with them..funny how things turn out..really rings true the mentioning of kids with autism speaking english as a second language..she fits in perfectly with them..and they mentor her in the ways she lacks~lots of nonverbal communication:)
Her non bi-lingual peers are way too chatty and all over the place with their girly drama exploits and clicks & imaginative play... she runs from them and wants nothing to do with them. Her best friend is a little girl named Guadulupe:) I am thrilled someone is including her and I am sure vice versa:)
WIN~WIN situation!
***FYI: Last year in kindergarten she never made one friend...this year the routine is so much easier and she is more open to others:)
Shelley - I remember when you were concerned about that and I shared that my ds FLUORISHED in a similar situation at Head Start where he was the only Caucasian child in the class and at least 60% of the children spoke English as a second language. For the same reasons you said - they spoke English slow enough and they didn't rely on LANGUAGE to play. His best friend this year also speaks English as a second language - although his English is really quite good.
I am SO glad it is working out for Sarah!
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