Asperger? Hyperactive?
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Sorry Busymom for late reply. Been very busy with work.
[quote]The only thing is, sometimes, he likes to repeat the same statement/question again and again, despite having gotten a reply or answer (but all kids are like that, right?)... [/quote]Mine don't ask the same question/statement again & again. Mine just diarrhea out whatever facts that he reads or watch. He's like a walking encyclopedia when he is into something. Detailing every aspect of what he has absorb & yes, he will repeat his facts telling.
Why I send? He's 9. Still extremely sensitive. Cries a lot or can get extremely angry. There is a period of time he hits himself when he can't get the piano playing right. He can't take jokes (zilch) or teasing. Very sensitive hearing like hearing vibration of metal or snake hissing. I'm worried how is he going to survive NS if I don't take steps in helping him out now. -
Hi all parents here!
Just wanted to share about my DS who is 2.8 yo now. At 2 yo we placed him into a CCC and 3 mths later, the teachers said he still could not sit still and listen. He would walk around the class and refused to sit down. So the assistant teacher will force him to sit down but he was not listening to the teachers. Also when the teachers called him (from a distance usually!), he wouldn't look at them but look at whatever that interests him. We thought he was just young so thought he will outgrow it so left him there for another 3 months. After 6 months the teachers told us they are worried for him and recommend we took him to do development assessment. Anything wrong go for early intervention!
We sort of freaked out at this point and took him out of childcare immediately!
My DS also kicked up a big fuss at the doctors' office hence more than 1 doctor told us to look out for signs of autism. But I always felt so disgusted with this suggestion because he was perfectly fine elsewhere though I know he is very stubborn and wants to get his own ways!
My MIL also raised her concerned that my DS likes to turn round and round, very active and stubborn. She read up about autism and asked her sisters who are nurses (all overseas) and she got so alarmed and was very sure there was something very seriously wrong with my DS!
She kept pestering my hubby to bring him for check-up and got my hubby very alarmed as well. I quarreled with her and thought she was too much! I believe there is nothing wrong with my DS except he has a very strong character. I asked her would she like to go to woodbridge and ask a pychologist to certify that she is sane? :slapshead:
Anyway long & short of it even though both my maid and myself thought my son is normal, we went to an early intervention centre and put him there on trial for 2 weeks. Surprising he enjoyed himself so much hence we decided to put him there for the rest of this year until he goes to Nursery next year!
But it sounds very bad to tell other people that your child is in an early intervention centre! :!: Must be something wrong with him right?
I agree that when child is young, the smaller the group with individual attention the better! However, correct me if I am wrong, you won't be able to get small ratio of 1:4 or 1:5 except in an early intervention centre! Usual pre-school ratio is much higher than that!
I also agree that we should trust our motherly instinct which will tell us whether our child is normal or not. My instinct told me my child is normal. But it drives me nuts when my mother-in-law told me it is OK (meaning I am in self-denial! ) :stupid:
Just went for 1st visit to KKH Child Devt. dept to see the doctor. She said my DS does not need to go for further assessments but must go for speech therapy since his speech is delayed ie. at 2.8 yo he is still mono-syllabic. She also recommends we queue up for those \"Rainbow Centres\" in case we need it 6-9 months down the road.
I feel a bit freaked out by all this. Are we going down the wrong path and making a mistake by putting our DS into an early intervention centre just at the comments of a few people?
Are society so unforgiving nowadays in that when kids kicked up a fuss at the doctors' office or outside (I thought it is normal child behaviour), people will straightaway think child could be autistic?
Or when child is very active and wants to run around, teachers or others will think that kid got ADHD? If kid not paying attention it is attention deficiency syndrome (BAAA....I just think the teacher and school is boring!). If kid very active it is Hyperactive Disorder!
BTW, my DS has fabulous eye-contact at home and at the early intervention centre. He loved to play with toy cars and look at their wheels when younger but now loose interest in them already. He does not line up his toys in a straight line, he does not flap his hands, he is not a stickler for routines, he has a temper but not uncontrollable. He loves to hug and kiss us and smiles often.
Next year by hook or by crook my DS will go to a main-stream Nursery! Praying to God we won't get sucked down the other path and ended up putting him in a special needs school when there is nothing much wrong with my boy!
Do you think I am in self-denial?
:celebrate: -
Self denial or not - I think this is a mother’s love after all.
Suggest you continue to monitor and observe him - objectively. Autism Spectrum Disoder is a spectrum, meaning each child will have slightly different characteristic.
On the other hand, if (and that is an IF) later down the road, you really discover that your son really needs intevention, would you then regret that you could have given him help much earlier (i.e. now) ?
All of us whose children are diagnosed - also walk the same long path of agony to accept the fact…
And why should one finds it difficult to tell another person that his/her child is undergoing early intevention ? That is nothing wrong. Even if the child is having autism, it is nobody’s fault. We have to educate ourselves and educate the public. -
pingsped:
Hi Pingsped,
hi
I'm a therapist. I also work with some children with autism.
I have also noticed this deterioration in visual skills, esp decoding & spelling. in some children who have \"normalised\".
It appears that as the brain is \"re-wired\" to perceive social and pragmatic cues, the child loses his near-perfect & automatic (effortless) visual perception skills. Decoding, esp multi-syllabic words, are now effortful. The prevalence of Singlish also affected the child's grammatical processor as he is now attuned to multiple sources of language input.
Most retain at least 1 asd trait but lay persons tend to perceive those behv as quirks, or being quick-tempered or awkward.
not too sure if the \"normalisation\" is stable or long-term. some say very stressful events/high anxiety may cause regression in adulthood.
I haven't had the time to read thro the research papers since kids' discharge.
Hope it helps.
Thank you very much for enligtening me. I am a mother constantly trying ways to see how to make up for my DD deficency. This phenonmen sorts of confuse me. As the visual memory power of my DD deteriorates, she excels and has been coached by me to be good at application skills (i.e Maths and Science). Or rather she did have the strength in this kind of subjects. Maybe by bringing out her inherent potential (as most people said ASD kids are good at Maths and that was how I put in tremendous effort to coach her to her current standard from a poor standard in P1), her talent of visual memory lost as she is performing more of reasoning skills. However, i still cannot understand if her weakness in english comprehension is more because of her deficiency or her poor vocabulary? She always tell me she cannot understand the passage and most often she would give up even in Exam and anyhow did and picked an answer or write an answer, same for close passages. I really feel a bit at wits end of how to help her in this area. Else, it is difficult to imagine she can did well for Maths and Science but poor in English, very unbalanced. If this is indeed caused by her deficiency, then I can decide the path forward for her and focus on it. -
Desertwind,
last year, a few months before his 3yo birth day, my ds2’s preschool teacher told us to get ds2 diagnosed as his attention span is very short and he liked to do funny stuff in class. i was very angry then. dh was also very angry. i did know that ds2 is very active, but although as parents we know our kid better, sometimes it is the teachers who had seen so many children, can give a better gauge of their behaviour. i did not want to deprive my son of a chance of a better life ahead and did not want to regret not getting early intervention if the teacher prove to be right, so i went to polyclinic to get referral to NUH for ADHD diagnosis. dh was very upset that i chose to listen to the teacher. i told him that i don’t want to regret not doing anything, and going for early diagnosis does not mean that i am going to put my son through any treatment or medication; i told him that we just take a step at a time and if it prove too much, we can stop any time.
at the therapist’s advice, our kid also underwent speech therapy. there is nothing much they do to the kid during any of these sessions cos we did not go to any intervention centre. the speech therapy sessions involves mostly diagnosis on the degree of delay and tips given to me on how to work on his speech. questioning by the therapist also leads me to realise what are the mistakes i had made that could have possibly led to his speech delay. -
Hi Desertwind,
You have PM
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DesertWind:
Dear Desertwind,Hi all parents here!
Anything wrong go for early intervention!
Next year by hook or by crook my DS will go to a main-stream Nursery! Praying to God we won't get sucked down the other path and ended up putting him in a special needs school when there is nothing much wrong with my boy!
Do you think I am in self-denial?
:celebrate:
Though I am not sure if your DS is confirmed as a Aspergers but I had gone through the same thing before. My DD has good eye contact but had problem socialising in pre-school and had behaviorial problems (quite serious when she was younger) and tends to be stubborn and rigid in thinking even till now.
Every child is different but I do feel that if it is Aspergers which is only mild Autistic, an early intervention program at young is appropriate and beneficial for the child. I did not do that for my girl as we got the confirmed diagnostic results at K2 so no point to transfer her to another school. Basically she learnt not much thing during her three year pre-school education because of her behavioral problem. If I could turn back the clock, I would have done otherwise.
HOWEVER, I do not think Aspergers kids similar to her case should be deprived of mainstream primary school. They actually can cope with primary school as they will become \"normalised\" (as quoted by one forumer here) as they grow older and can merge with the normal students.
Hence, do not have to feel despair if it is the case and learn to accept things as it is. It is of no fault of anyone. My encouragement to you is that my DD is doing well in school with her studies and behaviour (which I always get confirmation by her FT during the meet parents session). So if I can do it, everyone can also do it. I never give up and put up the utmost effort to help her. My whole brain is always thinking of how to help her to become a better person and cope with the society. Another advice which I think is very important is to choose a suitable primary school for this type of children, a school with good understanding and willingness to work with parents on the problem. -
SpecialNeeds:
On the other hand, if (and that is an IF) later down the road, you really discover that your son really needs intevention, would you then regret that you could have given him help much earlier (i.e. now) ?
And why should one finds it difficult to tell another person that his/her child is undergoing early intevention ?
Hi Specialneeds!
No, definitely no regret putting my DS at this early intervention centre now as he is enjoying himself, learning, went out for excursion and got fabulous principal and teachers! Because they are in this area they have much more patience and were able to feedback to us in great detail what he does and whether his behaviour is ok or not. As he has gotten used to this centre, I do not want to pull him out now and switch him as we feel he need to take refuge here this year until his speech is on and toilet-trained before we put him back to a mainstream pre-school with big class-size.
As for not telling people he is undergoing early intervention, it is to prevent him from being labeled, got different looks and treatment or even worst, got rejected by normal pre-schools! We don't want to \"destroy\" his reputation and schooling chance even before he has properly begun.
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jedamum:
Desertwind,
last year, a few months before his 3yo birth day, my ds2's preschool teacher told us to get ds2 diagnosed as his attention span is very short and he liked to do funny stuff in class. i was very angry then. dh was also very angry. i did know that ds2 is very active, but although as parents we know our kid better, sometimes it is the teachers who had seen so many children, can give a better gauge of their behaviour. i did not want to deprive my son of a chance of a better life ahead and did not want to regret not getting early intervention if the teacher prove to be right, so i went to polyclinic to get referral to NUH for ADHD diagnosis. dh was very upset that i chose to listen to the teacher. i told him that i don't want to regret not doing anything, and going for early diagnosis does not mean that i am going to put my son through any treatment or medication; i told him that we just take a step at a time and if it prove too much, we can stop any time.
at the therapist's advice, our kid also underwent speech therapy. there is nothing much they do to the kid during any of these sessions cos we did not go to any intervention centre. the speech therapy sessions involves mostly diagnosis on the degree of delay and tips given to me on how to work on his speech. questioning by the therapist also leads me to realise what are the mistakes i had made that could have possibly led to his speech delay.
Hi Jedamum!
Thanks for sharing, I think your post is the most similar to what I am going through now! At this moment I am at the same point as you were last year with my DS!
Difference is I am like your DH (very angry, don't think there is a need to go see pychologist) and my DH is like you (more pragmatic, get it check out just in case).
So may I ask you some questions now about your DS:
1. Is he still attending the same pre-school?
2. Has his speech came on already?
3. How do you react to teacher's feedback about his short attention span and doing funny things in class ie. will you try to tell the teacher that they should do something or apologize for his behaviour and pull him out?
4. What would be your reason for not putting your DS into early intervention ie. not even for a few hours a few times per week?
Sorry you can PM me if you wish! :?: -
snowyqueen:
Hi Snowyqueen!
Dear Desertwind,
Though I am not sure if your DS is confirmed as a Aspergers but I had gone through the same thing before...........Basically she learnt not much thing during her three year pre-school education because of her behavioral problem. If I could turn back the clock, I would have done otherwise....I never give up and put up the utmost effort to help her. My whole brain is always thinking of how to help her to become a better person and cope with the society. Another advice which I think is very important is to choose a suitable primary school for this type of children, a school with good understanding and willingness to work with parents on the problem.
Thank you for your encouragement and advice! I think I still have a long way to go but taking each day as it comes. No, I understand that there will be no concrete diagnosis until a child is 4 yo. Before that, I understand it is just close monitoring and intervention only. This also gives me hope as I am attributing all these to his young age and the \"boy speaks later\" common belief! My main priority now is to get a supportive pre-school for him so that he will not waste his time and learn nothing much during the years before primary!
:celebrate:
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