Autism

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Cheers for all the replies, this us all new to me so its great to hear other peoples experiences.
My little boys assessment has just finished and he is now playing happily on Barnes Park. As somene said earlier sometimes i just think he is a normal little lad and I am imagining things, but then I compare him with his friends and he is definitely a bit different . Guess i am just going to have to wait for the results to come back and take it from there.
@Dave Herbal i think i have emptied my inbox but using my phone so dunno if i done it right,
 


We have a 4 year old diagnosed with Autism. He can count to 150 unaided and read books aimed at 7/8 year olds, but struggles with stringing conversation together

The only advice I can give you (if you get the diagnosis) is hire in County Durham's version of the Sunderland's Autism Outreach team. What a difference this has made to our life. I'm not discounting anyone in the Sunderland team, but the info and support we received from Durham's was on another level. We cannot fault them
 
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My daughter has aspbergers she 20 now drives and has a good job, she struggled as a teenager was bullied mercilessly at school. Just love him keep him close and watch for bullying ( most kids with the condition are) . But there is hope good luck
 
sadders said:
My daughter has Asperger which is a fairly uncommon diagnosis in a girl as they can present quite differently from a boy.

She is 18 now and we have had lots of issues through the years. Again very bright and she taught herself to read and wright at about three. She thrived through junior school although always did things in her own way.

The problems started in secondary school She cant read people and this lead to social anxiety and stress. This lead onto depression and we had a few very dark years full of self harm and suicidal thoughts. School took a back seat and she basically lost her education through it and her school was terrible with it basically (illegally) excluding her after a self harm incident.

I am pleased to say she is a lot better now. She still has her issues but manages them better. She has a small but close circle of friends. She is on a course in art and design leading on to costume design and textiles that she loves. She is now very happy although she has her moments.

My advice is to change your goalposts. Love him for who he is but dont have expectations.Find the things he loves and encourage. Work with his school throughout. Always be there. Also don't expect much in return as they don't have the same emotions. My daughter has only allowed me to hug her once since she was about 10 and that was when she had had a drink.

If you need to talk etc - pm me.
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Did you see Birmingham Children's Hospital last week. The was a young lass on with Aspergers with symptoms like that of your daughter.
 
Reedie8610 said:
My daughter has aspbergers she 20 now drives and has a good job, she struggled as a teenager was bullied mercilessly at school. Just love him keep him close and watch for bullying ( most kids with the condition are) . But there is hope good luck
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Bullying is the thing that I dread most. He is fine at this age, he has been with the same kids since nursery and he is pretty popular. I am dreading him going to secondary school already. He is a lovely little lad, really kind and loving, and the thoughts of anyone bullying him kills me.

AndrewP said:
Did you see Birmingham Children's Hospital last week. The was a young lass on with Aspergers with symptoms like that of your daughter.
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I didn't see that but i have recorded it, I will watch it when I get home.
 
AndrewP said:
Did you see Birmingham Children's Hospital last week. The was a young lass on with Aspergers with symptoms like that of your daughter.
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I didn't marra. I work in a hospital so try to avoid them when I'm not there.

It's an odd one, female aspergers. You wouldn't know it if you met her but inside she is struggling to make sense of whats being said, or rather the implication as she cant read faces well or emotion. She recently said that the only people she doesn't have to do this with is me, her mam and her brother.

One of the best things we did was family counselling through the NHS. Taught us better how to deal with her which was basically to give her a lot of leeway and to pick our battles with her carefully.
 
addicted_to_safc said:
Cheers for all the replies, this us all new to me so its great to hear other peoples experiences.
My little boys assessment has just finished and he is now playing happily on Barnes Park. As somene said earlier sometimes i just think he is a normal little lad and I am imagining things, but then I compare him with his friends and he is definitely a bit different . Guess i am just going to have to wait for the results to come back and take it from there.
@Dave Herbal i think i have emptied my inbox but using my phone so dunno if i done it right,
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What did they say after his assessment? Or do you have to wait. Your boy has a loving dad who obviously thinks the world of him, I'm sure you'll make sure he's ok regardless of what they diagnose.

sadders said:
I didn't marra. I work in a hospital so try to avoid them when I'm not there.

It's an odd one, female aspergers. You wouldn't know it if you met her but inside she is struggling to make sense of whats being said, or rather the implication as she cant read faces well or emotion. She recently said that the only people she doesn't have to do this with is me, her mam and her brother.

One of the best things we did was family counselling through the NHS. Taught us better how to deal with her which was basically to give her a lot of leeway and to pick our battles with her carefully.
Click to expand...

This episode was really interesting. She presented at A&E and it didn't tell you why, she seemed like a normal happy, if not a bit quirky teen, singing along with QOTSA and dressed a bit alternatively. It didn't say why she presented, I'm guessing the reason was to trick people into thinking she was a time waster.

Turns out she was having suicidal thoughts and needed more help. Her dad seemed great too.
 
addicted_to_safc said:
Bullying is the thing that I dread most. He is fine at this age, he has been with the same kids since nursery and he is pretty popular. I am dreading him going to secondary school already. He is a lovely little lad, really kind and loving, and the thoughts of anyone bullying him kills me.


I didn't but i have recorded it, I will watch it when I get home.
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Some kids can be shits and others can be very nurturing. I think now more and more kids have an understanding what these 'different' kids about. You will have to work with the school on it mind.

It might all seem a bit dark now but there will be some really good times ahead as well as the difficult. I learn't to enjoy and grab hold of the good but to worry about the bad when it was there. My wife however was always worried what was around the corner.

AndrewP said:
What did they say after his assessment? Or do you have to wait. Your boy has a loving dad who obviously thinks the world of him, I'm sure you'll make sure he's ok regardless of what they diagnose.



This episode was really interesting. She presented at A&E and it didn't tell you why, she seemed like a normal happy, if not a bit quirky teen, singing along with QOTSA and dressed a bit alternatively. It didn't say why she presented, I'm guessing the reason was to trick people into thinking she was a time waster.

Turns out she was having suicidal thoughts and needed more help. Her dad seemed great too.
Click to expand...
You could have just described my daughter several years ago. Midnight runs to A+E. Not fun.
 
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sadders said:
My daughter has Asperger which is a fairly uncommon diagnosis in a girl as they can present quite differently from a boy.

She is 18 now and we have had lots of issues through the years. Again very bright and she taught herself to read and wright at about three. She thrived through junior school although always did things in her own way.

The problems started in secondary school She cant read people and this lead to social anxiety and stress. This lead onto depression and we had a few very dark years full of self harm and suicidal thoughts. School took a back seat and she basically lost her education through it and her school was terrible with it basically (illegally) excluding her after a self harm incident.

I am pleased to say she is a lot better now. She still has her issues but manages them better. She has a small but close circle of friends. She is on a course in art and design leading on to costume design and textiles that she loves. She is now very happy although she has her moments.

My advice is to change your goalposts. Love him for who he is but dont have expectations.Find the things he loves and encourage. Work with his school throughout. Always be there. Also don't expect much in return as they don't have the same emotions. My daughter has only allowed me to hug her once since she was about 10 and that was when she had had a drink.

If you need to talk etc - pm me.
Click to expand...

Spookily sounds very like my daughter, luckily the Psychiatrist says she is marginally on the Aspergers spectrum so she functions pretty well. She had the same issues at Secondary school as your daughter but not as severe - doing GCSE's she barely attended lessons and still came out with 5A*, 6A and a C and then similar at A levels and got A*A*A and is at UCL now. Great advice overall and echo it, my daughter has learnt to cope but she still has good and bad days, her social skills can be a little amiss at times too.
 
taipeisafc said:
Spookily sounds very like my daughter, luckily the Psychiatrist says she is marginally on the Aspergers spectrum so she functions pretty well. She had the same issues at Secondary school as your daughter but not as severe - doing GCSE's she barely attended lessons and still came out with 5A*, 6A and a C and then similar at A levels and got A*A*A and is at UCL now. Great advice overall and echo it, my daughter has learnt to cope but she still has good and bad days, her social skills can be a little amiss at times too.
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God, I'm flipping welling up now with that and thinking back to how its been over the years.

I want to impress to the OP that it's not all doom and gloom (although it may seem that way) and he still has a wonderful kid that will have some tough times but is likely to go on and lead a very happy and fulfilling life. There are also some excellent services out there but you often have to search for them and push to get them.
 
sadders said:
You could have just described my daughter several years ago. Midnight runs to A+E. Not fun.
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From your earlier post, your daughter sounded just like the girl on the show. Turns out the girl on the show was struggling with her own gender too, poor thing. Thankfully it seems like she's turned a corner now anyway.
 
AndrewP said:
From your earlier post, your daughter sounded just like the girl on the show. Turns out the girl on the show was struggling with her own gender too, poor thing. Thankfully it seems like she's turned a corner now anyway.
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Got to laugh. My daughter has had her LGBTQ moments as well. It has lead her to her ambition of designing and making costumes for drag queens.

These kids can add a lot of colour to the world.
 
sadders said:
God, I'm flipping welling up now with that and thinking back to how its been over the years.

I want to impress to the OP that it's not all doom and gloom (although it may seem that way) and he still has a wonderful kid that will have some tough times but is likely to go on and lead a very happy and fulfilling life. There are also some excellent services out there but you often have to search for them and push to get them.
Click to expand...

The biggest problem I had is that I was a typical ignorant NE bloke - most people with Mental issues or depression were malingerers or swinging the lead. Looking back with what I know now I feel pretty stupid and realise that others in my family and some friends were obviously suffering but the advice was to man up. There needs to be far better education about mental health and behavioural disorders in my view as I was totally ignorant.

sadders said:
Got to laugh. My daughter has had her LGBTQ moments as well. It has lead her to her ambition of designing and making costumes for drag queens.

These kids can add a lot of colour to the world.
Click to expand...

Are you me? My daughter has a strange thing for drag queens and very into LGBTQ (or whatever the letter combination is now) issues. She also has purple hair and a nose ring and I expect her to appear with tattoo's at some point in the future.
 
taipeisafc said:
The biggest problem I had is that I was a typical ignorant NE bloke - most people with Mental issues or depression were malingerers or swinging the lead. Looking back with what I know now I feel pretty stupid and realise that others in my family and some friends were obviously suffering but the advice was to man up. There needs to be far better education about mental health and behavioural disorders in my view as I was totally ignorant.
Click to expand...
I do think things are improving on this. Maybe that should read - I do hope things are improving on this.
 
addicted_to_safc said:
Bullying is the thing that I dread most. He is fine at this age, he has been with the same kids since nursery and he is pretty popular. I am dreading him going to secondary school already. He is a lovely little lad, really kind and loving, and the thoughts of anyone bullying him kills me.


I didn't see that but i have recorded it, I will watch it when I get home.
Click to expand...
Bairn went to a big Newcastle Comp and the kids stuck together and looked after each other much more than in my day.
 
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I have just finished doing some work with children with ASCs and most of them had some kind of learning difficulty and delayed language development there were some with Asperger's. It was useful for me to not think of autism on a scale of mild to severe but in terms of traits, everyone has some autistic traits but some have more than others. Everyone with an ASC will have a different combination of traits so will be affected differently.

I remember a lad in the year above me at school who, with hindsight, clearly had Asperger's and was badly bullied and a couple of the kids with Asperger's I worked with were having a hard time at school and struggling to make friends. The OP said his son has friends at the momnet and will happily play with them which is good. He'll still be developing social skills but finding it harder (and his friends will be learning about getting on with people with an ASC). I would look at what support is out there, I don't know for Sunderland, and try and keep going as the OP has been, the more his son can get on with people without an ASC the better prepared he'll be for when he has to do stuff more independently.
 
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