Dear all
need your first hand experience on some outlook that is coming, as I am still very lost as wad I be facing.
our boy is currently 21 months, so recently I was chatting with a colleague who has an autistic kid and I began to just do some reading up on ASD and my suspicions starts to grow, I am a daddy here by the way so I am not so observant for a start unless I have something to start with.
Some red flags we noticed in our boy
1. No words yet ; but he sometimes will go "wa" or say "no" or "go" but may not always be in the right context or used at the appropriate time
2. Spin with eyes at the sides, I have read this is a major red flag but he seems to be it doing out of fun and not something obsessive, I am able to stop it with "no" to him. he does not go into any meltdown
3. poor response to name calling, half the time he would ignore but other half the time he would turn ard and smile or run to u for a hug, other than that he actually quite affectionate to family members including his aunts and uncles.
4. he has very bad stranger anxiety, as he would not let anybody carry him, its a hit and miss but I do notice if u warmed him up hes ok, like my parents in law, whom he sees probably once a mth, initially he will wail, refuse to even go into the house, hold on to the gate refusing to go in and even when he goes in, he will hold on to us tightly until my in laws coax him with toys whom he will slowly play with it n open up to them, my FIL last time round actually brought him down to look at cars, he likes to look at cars and he told us he actually took the initiative to hold his hand as they walk, but of course this anxiety does not turn up very well for his development checkups cos he be non cooperative and refuse to comply or play.
4a. he has no siblings and his cousins are in upp primary, so basically since birth he is all the while alone.
4b. this shows up as a major red flag during review with our recent paeds, I will touch on that later.
on the good side , he seems trainable in some sense
currently at 21 mths, he can
1. Return his milk bottle to the sink from bedroom when coaxed
2. Throw his diaper to kitchen bin from bedroom when coaxed
3. handover things on his hands when we asked, altho he don't involve us much during his play, he sometimes would shake things and look at us for our attention
4. he would know after hes dressed and we are dressed its time to go out, he will be waiting at the gate to go out, so sometimes he will fetch his shoes from the show rack and wait at the door, sometimes he forgets but will do it if we remind him wheres the shoe ?
5. he does not stack or lined his toys but sometimes will stare at the spinning ceiling fan for a while, he likes moving objects with loud noises for example buses, trucks and aeroplanes and will follow visually but he dosent point or show us.
6. he sleeps well , long hrs maybe 9-10 hrs daily excluding afternoon naps which is abt 2-3 hrs, sometimes 5.
7. eats well, its quite a glutton even after his food he will come to us when we r eating and munch his mouth, he does not point or give verbal requests
8. he throw tantrumns sometimes but its not meltdown, can normally be soothen by carrying n cuddling
ok back to his assessment
1. his 18mths at polyclinic was bad, basically it cannot be carried out, he was hungry and after injection and it was his noon nap time
1a. the rebookin was really long plus I was getting abit paranoid so we went to raffles children centre when we saw a paeds specializing in child development and she highly suspect him for moderate autism as basically our boy bo chup her when she tries to play with him , he will jus go abt playing his own stuffs, but he was nvr given a chance to play with others , other than us.
on the playing with us part, he could not do too complicated games but able to sort shapes and handover or take things from us, he has generally good eye contact with pple, infact when hes drinking milk sometimes he will look at u deeply like trying to connect with u
the initial diagnosis was devastating and confusing news to us.
I was reading up a lot on the red flags so sometimes I feel he is ASD, sometimes I feel hes not judging by the things he is able to do, I am not saying he is exceptionally smart but I do have a nephew is severe ASD n he basically jus cry all day and is basically not very functional.
my sis is a special needs teacher who deals with ASD kids tells me she think shes not, its jus poor performance infront of the assessor, comparing to her students, ASD kids normally have a very structured way of doing things like doing things in sequence or are subceptible to loud noises or lights, she so far did not see any of such things in our boy but noted his development is abit behind, she and my boy sometimes play "catching" and will chase each other.
am so totally confused, please help me out