Hello,

Well I found out on Friday that my 3 year old has a mild case of autism. Does anyone else have a child with autism? I sure could use someone to talk to about it all.

Thanks,
Vickie

There are several ladies on this board who have children with autism. You have definitely come to the right place for support and advice!

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Shaking in my boots (well, if I was wearing them in the middle of summer!), but glad to be back!

Thanks, it has been nonstop trying to deal with her since she was born and me and my husband have begun to grow distant since she needs so much of our attention. On top of that I have two other children that are not in school yet so it is difficult enough having three young kids and myself being fairly young, but to have a child that you can't seem to understand is very hard. I feel that at times I am not the mom for her and that putting her up for adoption would be best for her. That was the whole reason why I brought her to the doctor, again. I felt so helpless and just didn't know what to do. You hear so much about ADD and ADHD that I kept asking her previous doctor about that and she just kept telling me that we would have to wait until she started school. I always felt like some unfit mother because I'm 23 years old, but I look like I'm still in my teens with three kids and one that is so out of control. My husband is starting to really get on my nerves because he constantly needs my attention too and I feel like I'm at my wits end with all of them. I'm glad we found out because now I think that we will both be able to work together and he will be more understanding that she needs more of my attention than he does.

Sorry this was long, had to vent a bit.

Absolutely!! You needed to get that out! I have a child who is severe ADHD. At two, at three, at four, and all the times in between, I asked and asked just what was WRONG!!! I had waited five years for him....and dh had had to have major surgery to get him here...and on top of that, he was born a month premature..yet I could not get him to calm down and be a normal child! At four, the dr. finally really listened to me and referred us out. He saw a psycologist a week later, who diagnosed 12 out of 12 symptoms of ADHD. He has been on medicine since that week...and he is now 6 1/2 years old. He is still my "wild child" when he doesn't get his meds or when he is just late getting them, but otherwise, he is now a perfectly normal little boy. He plays, he has an imagination, and yes, he even gets into trouble...he just doesn't STAY in trouble..and keep ME staying CRAZY!! I feel for you...and know that you are NOT alone (in having a child like this OR in having three by your age...I did, too!! I now have SIX!!). Good luck...and pm desertmom or tacoma_ranch if you have any immediate needs. They are both wonderful...and both have children with autism!

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Shaking in my boots (well, if I was wearing them in the middle of summer!), but glad to be back!

I only have a sister who is autistic. Sending big hugs as I know how I struggled having her as a sister.

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Casey loving wife to Steven mom to 4 bratty girls Amanda, Rebecca, Jessica and Makayla
Where did my baby go

Hi Vicki,

I am April and our DS is Hunter who has autism. When he was born he had colic and then was doing great until about 18 months when he just stopped talking. A year after speech therapy I was so angry and upset that I demanded a referral to a child psychologist. In the state of Wyoming there is a waiver that provides services to child with disabilities so I applied for the program to get the free evaluation.

We never expected to have our son fail and be told he has autism. It hits like a brick and you will also run a spectrum of emotions. You will be happy that your deep seated feeling that some thing is wrong is now validated. Go ahead, tell everyone "I told you so". Moms do know. You will cry, I mean a sea of tears. Let them flow, throw the pillow, scream at God, scream the world. You will feel like there is the death of your child. All your dreams are now gone of the wonderful like, the normal life...It hurts and it is a grieving process that you will go thru.

You will wonder why? It is nothing you did or didn't do, it just is. At times I think God is just a big bully with a bad sense of humor.

This is hard and I am so sorry that you are a member of the club that I wish no one joined. But we are here, here for each other.

Take time to be with your husband. See if grandmom can watch the kids and go out. Just DH and you. I know it sounds crazy right now, but take a moment to stop the madness and be with each other.

Look at good sites for autism. Intenisve early intervention is one thing that all experts agree does help. Be careful. A fool and their money soon parts. There are 100's of companies that promise cures, for a price. Stay away and do your reseach for what intervention you want for your daughter.

I am so sorry and it does suck, but life will go on, it will not be the life you planned but a good life!

When you are ready, please PM me for more information about what services you are entitled to get for your daughter, the IEP, and so much more.

For now, just let me know what we can do to help you? PM me at anytime.
Big Hugs, April

Thank you for stopping in here. Tacoma has some good, wise words. My son is on the autism scale with Aspergers. Ask your doctor to try to steer you toward the help you deserve. My first advice is to get with a developmental pediatrician. Check w/your insurance company to see which ones are on their plan, then run those names by your pediatrician to see if they have any recommendations. Many do have a waiting list, but if you call nice, express the urgency that you don't know where else to turn, etc., they will try to work w/you - get on their cancellation list.

How severe is the autism? You stated mild, but did they say where the strengths and weaknesses are? Did they recommend any therapies or schools? Are there other disorders, such as sensory disorders? There are still so many questions. And yes, it seems that when you have no more to stretch, the dh's tend to try to hold on tighter and become children themselves, as they see your energies going elsewhere. They need to be partners. I have no words of wisdom there, except to talk to him and explain how stretched you feel and how you need him. Keep him in the loop on what you learn. Make sure he attends the meetings with the doctors, especially at first. He needs to be there - it's huge. If you have time, read through the posts in this forum. The info you have at this point is so general, and you need more info, which is where the dev. ped. will come in. Please post your questions and we will try to help in our non-expert way as much as we can.

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Make someone's heart smile today.

The Really Needy, Special, Networking and Talking Mod

Now I started doing some reading last night on it and found something about the diets. Do either of you do that and have you seen any changes in the behavior?
I had lost my nephew last year from short gut syndrome so this is helping me out tremendously on being sad because she is still here and she talks and most of the time is able to make it to the potty in time. So I am very grateful that it is just minor and I am hopeful that once we get going with the changes we will start to see positive changes. Now how did you explain it to siblings? I'm stuck right now because her 5 year old sister calls her crazy because she gets so hyper. I know she doesn't mean it literally of course, but I want her to understand that Haylee can't help it.

Now my dh is taking it a little hard because he doesn't want to look at her differently and it is frustrating me because he is not wanting to learn about autism. Now it has only been a few days and I'm trying to be understanding, but I want him to learn so we can help her and our other children. I actually had found out that a month ago or so when Haylee had gone to my mil's house my sil had made a horrible comment. My mil had asked Haylee to get the phone and my sil said oh great you sent brain dead to go get it. Now this was before we found out that she was autistic, but I am feeling very angry that my sil would even say a thing like that about a 3 year old. So I really don't want her going over there because my sil lives there still and I don't want anyone hurting my baby of course.


Right now we are waiting for the doctors to set up an appointment with the specialist, but her pediatrician said it may take up to two months before we can be seen. We'll find out tomorrow when the appointment is set. Her doctor didn't say too much other than it being a mild case. She holds her ears with her hands when there are normal noises, but then turns the t.v. up full blast. She is almost four and will at times just have an accident and we're at home so the bathroom is right there. She is very hyper and will stay up until late at night and wake up first thing in the morning. She kept me up until a little past midnight last night and then woke up again at 4 this morning. She went back to sleep but is back up for 7. She talks with her head down and it is difficult to get her to look you in the eyes. Oh and watch out when she throws a tantrum because she is violent. I was sitting in the chair and she wanted chips yesterday and I told her she had to eat her cereal first. She was actually able to move the chair with me in it. Now I don't weigh very much, but I feel if I don't get it under control then she will start to really hurt me. That is the main thing that bothers me is the tantrums. She is so unpredictable about what she will throw a tantrum over next and some of the times we don't even know why. Thank you all for you support and just listening I really need it right now.

My ds Aaron who will be 6 in july is Autistic. He is very high functioning and continues to improve day by day.

His symptoms happened around 18 months also, any words he did have completely disappeared and he became angry and lost any eye contact. The Early Intervention school program originally diagnosed him in 2003 when he was a little over 2 yrs old and we got a medical diagnosis in September of 2004 from the University of Fairview (U of Minnesota)

They diagnosed him PDD-NOS, Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, he just had a re-evaluation where they think his diagnosis should be changed to Aspergers Syndrome. He has come a long way with therapies and extra care, feel free to PM or chat, I am here for you!

MnMommy at hotmail dot com

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My Life...with Cheese!

My 5 year old nephew is autistic (also very high functioning) and was diagnosed at 3. It was an extremely tough and emotional year for my sister and her family (she also has 2 other children and he is the middle child). While they were trying to get the diagnosis, she was so frustrated just trying to take care of him - her oldest child is just a dream child that has never had any behavioral issues - that she wondered if she could do it. She is a runner and she used to say that she would get out there and start running and daydream about just running and running and never coming back. Now she loves her son dearly, don't get me wrong, but she felt so incompetent.

So fast forward 2 years and he has been in intensive ABA therapy every day and he talks extremely well, his tantrums are very under control, he plays well most of the time with other children, and will go to kindergarten next year in a normal classroom (his ABA therapist will go with him but they think after next year it won't be neccessary anymore). I encourage you to do as much research as you can so you can be her best advocate. I know tacomaranch uses ABA with her son and has had much success with it. My sister and BIL can't sing the praises enough. One thing I can tell you is that the whole family had to learn how to communicate with him. He had major auditory processing issues and just didn't get it when you talked to him in a normal conversational way. They had to back way up, simplify what they were saying, and force him to respond. His sisters had a bad habit of talking for him and doing things for him and they had to learn how to make him ask for what he wanted. That is just one example, but there were many things they could do to make it easier on the whole family. Good luck on your journey.