For those of you whose children's special needs aren't physically noticeable, at what age did you suspect there was something different about your child?
For both of my boys, the father was concerned about their lack of normal speech at 18 months old, but I was fine with the fact that they could communicate their needs with me. It took a while after that before I was ready to find out if the lack of speech was something more. The older boy was normal in almost every way aside from his speech at that early stage - or so I thought. He did have a habit of playing NEAR other children, but not WITH them. When I took him for the speech evaluation at 3 years old, the avoidance was what tipped the psychologist off that he was on the spectrum.
The younger one was more complicated. The day he was born, I said that he had a "look" about himself that the other children didn't have, a faraway glance, and a habit of turning away from us instead of engaging like the other children did.
Eventually he ended up being what I would call "my babiest baby of them all" because he was joined to me at the hip. He couldn't just be near me, he had to be touching me all the time - wait - but with his feet. He developed a habit of walking his feet up my back. He was also what I thought was a stereotypical baby, from the sound of his cry to his desire to be carried all the time.
By 20 months he had emerging language and a small vocabulary, but not two months later, he just stopped talking. He just started following me everywhere around the house and if I stopped and sat down he would put his feet on me. He started becoming interested in books, only to tear the books up and then eat them. Then around that time, he started being constipated all the time. I couldn't understand about the stomach issues at all, and didn't even connect the dots.
Then when asked about all this in the evaluation, it all came together. Every single sign was there from the day he was born. By now, we're all used to him. His diagnosis hasn't changed anything about our relationship with him. However, it HAS made me look at the research into the physical symptoms of autism, and it has helped me to implement some evidence based practices at home that have helped him to improve.
We're now taking every day one day at a time. I've enrolled him in the playgroups that I have been wishing for - one is an occupational group and the other is a speech and social skills group. I'm happy that I get to participate in the groups with him. His constipation is so much better since the nutrition interventions. There are a couple more home based interventions that I'll discuss in detail in other posts.
I'm so happy that we found ways to help our boys. I'm confident that all of us will get the help we need to help nurture our special children and see them grow into able adults!
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