All About Autism

[optrex80]

Anyone can give me information on whether i should put my kid in special school or a normal stream school?

[sharonkhoo]

Double E:

slmkhoo:

[quote=\"Couragemom\"]Hi Double E,


Thanks for your advice! My daughter is just like yours, not too keen on her academics. Mine loves to talk! I will moderate my expectation of my son. But recently I got complained by his principal that he cannot hold a scissors properly to cut dough, then I was like 'duhhhh, ooooookkkkk, I will practice with him at home. Gosh!

This is a case in point. Your son is 2yo, right? Then why should he be expected to use a scissors?

From the US National Institutes of Health website:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 002013.htm
Fine motor development milestones should include:

At about age 3:
Drawing a circle
Drawing a person with three parts
Beginning to use children's blunt-nose scissors
Self-dressing (with supervision)
At about age 4:
Drawing a square
Using scissors, and eventually cutting a straight line
Putting on clothes properly
Managing a spoon and fork neatly while eating
At about age 5:
Spreading with a knife
Drawing a triangle

Please don't let misguided teachers and therapists set unrealistic targets for your kids and make you worried. Check for yourself. Just because one child can do it doesn't mean all kids should be expected to do it. In your place, I wouldn't even bother to teach the boy to use scissors yet.

Agree. only 2 years old leh. Do teachers really think all the kids are so smart? even teachers have good and bad ones. And at this moment, what is more impt? using a scissors or other areas like joint attention, speech? Tackle the more impt and crucial ones first, I say.[/quote]And actually, isn't it a bit dangerous to let a 2yo use a scissors, even if it's a small, blunt one? I'm sure I never allowed my kids to use one that young.

[sharonkhoo]

optrex80:

Anyone can give me information on whether i should put my kid in special school or a normal stream school?

How severely is your child affected? How is his behaviour, maturity, intellectual ability, social skills etc? You need to describe your child more.

[mashy]

Double E:

slmkhoo:

[quote=\"Couragemom\"]Hi Double E,


Thanks for your advice! My daughter is just like yours, not too keen on her academics. Mine loves to talk! I will moderate my expectation of my son. But recently I got complained by his principal that he cannot hold a scissors properly to cut dough, then I was like 'duhhhh, ooooookkkkk, I will practice with him at home. Gosh!

This is a case in point. Your son is 2yo, right? Then why should he be expected to use a scissors?

From the US National Institutes of Health website:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 002013.htm
Fine motor development milestones should include:

At about age 3:
Drawing a circle
Drawing a person with three parts
Beginning to use children's blunt-nose scissors
Self-dressing (with supervision)
At about age 4:
Drawing a square
Using scissors, and eventually cutting a straight line
Putting on clothes properly
Managing a spoon and fork neatly while eating
At about age 5:
Spreading with a knife
Drawing a triangle

Please don't let misguided teachers and therapists set unrealistic targets for your kids and make you worried. Check for yourself. Just because one child can do it doesn't mean all kids should be expected to do it. In your place, I wouldn't even bother to teach the boy to use scissors yet.

Agree. only 2 years old leh. Do teachers really think all the kids are so smart? even teachers have good and bad ones. And at this moment, what is more impt? using a scissors or other areas like joint attention, speech? Tackle the more impt and crucial ones first, I say.[/quote]Agree. Some teachers are just placing unrealistic expectations on the kids. 2 year old is too young to be able to use a scissors well. Maybe some can but not the majority.

My NT girl also likes to talk and not into acad. lol. She only wants to be a princess and sing all day.

My son's berries teacher said he is very bright and can do very well for Chinese. Lol. I'm only expecting him to pass and in fact applying for exemption coz I feel he can't cope. But probably all teachers say the same thing. THey start off by saying your child is very clever, BUT....

[Couragemom]

Hi mommies,


Exactly!!! I was like duhhhh, use blunt scissors to cut dough now??? Ooookkkk… Anyway I checked with my OT and she said b4 using scissors, I can train with a spray canister (the one we spray our clothes b4 ironing), the motion activates the same muscle as using scissors.

Simkhoo,

Yes, if based on US speech standard, my son is not even speech-delayed because he now has spontaneous 2-4 sentences now at 2 years old. BUT the developmental PD deem him as speech-delayed!!!

Hi ImMeeMee,

You are very right to say my detachment is just to protect myself from further hurt but I don’t know how I can live like that for the rest of the year! It is just that without the formal assessment, I will always cherish that ray of hope that maybe he is just delayed and not ASD. Then every time he shows improvement, then I will be very happy then straight after I chided myself, don’t be too happy, wait it is fake hope how? But with all the mommies’ wise advice and my own soul-searching, I have decided to hang on there, because assessing too early is not fair to my son and I will always think that the diagnosis is unfair.

[sharonkhoo]

Couragemom:

Hi mommies,

Simkhoo,

Yes, if based on US speech standard, my son is not even speech-delayed because he now has spontaneous 2-4 sentences now at 2 years old. BUT the developmental PD deem him as speech-delayed!!!

Hi ImMeeMee,

You are very right to say my detachment is just to protect myself from further hurt but I don't know how I can live like that for the rest of the year! It is just that without the formal assessment, I will always cherish that ray of hope that maybe he is just delayed and not ASD. Then every time he shows improvement, then I will be very happy then straight after I chided myself, don't be too happy, wait it is fake hope how? But with all the mommies' wise advice and my own soul-searching, I have decided to hang on there, because assessing too early is not fair to my son and I will always think that the diagnosis is unfair.

Frankly, since your son already can speak and seems to be OK in many ways, why not forget the therapies and go with your gut instinct? Give him and yourself a chance and see how it goes. I prefer to follow the official standards of countries like the US/UK rather than just rely on individual professionals. Although I don't want to accuse anyone, but do remember that they earn money by getting you to use their services, and they may tend to give you the worst case scenario so you stay with them longer.

Also, think of the costs (not just financial) of going to therapies - time, anxiety, lack of freedom for your son to do what he likes, less time for you to interact with him yourself etc.

[KK6]

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[Couragemom]

Hi Simkhoo,


My game plan for this year is to continue with his 2 types of therapies especially OT as he does has low muscle tone issues - when he was younger he kept falling down even on even/flat path, he cannot maneuver around a cramped room with furniture without knocking his head and cannot run in a straight line (he will verve to the left or right straight into the bushes in the park!).

As for ST, I will monitor his progress until June to see if his vocabulary is growing on track anot. Like you said before, nothing beats our continuous talking to our little ones to help them learn new words!

I did follow my gut feeling and dropped eipic as I felt he is coping well in his playgroup, thus no need to overload him with another program.

But of course I am worried about the regression (which I understand may be the case of ASD kids), thus I am also cautious about letting go therapies so soon. Thank you for your encouragement about my son, your advice is appreciated very much too!

[sharonkhoo]

Couragemom:

Hi Simkhoo,


My game plan for this year is to continue with his 2 types of therapies especially OT as he does has low muscle tone issues - when he was younger he kept falling down even on even/flat path, he cannot maneuver around a cramped room with furniture without knocking his head and cannot run in a straight line (he will verve to the left or right straight into the bushes in the park!).

As for ST, I will monitor his progress until June to see if his vocabulary is growing on track anot. Like you said before, nothing beats our continuous talking to our little ones to help them learn new words!

I did follow my gut feeling and dropped eipic as I felt he is coping well in his playgroup, thus no need to overload him with another program.

But of course I am worried about the regression (which I understand may be the case of ASD kids), thus I am also cautious about letting go therapies so soon. Thank you for your encouragement about my son, your advice is appreciated very much too!

Glad you have a plan! My daughter didn't even try to run until she was about 4yo, I think. She has always had motor skills issues, so we had to teach her slowly. She was always about 2yrs or more behind (judging by my other girl who is 2+yrs younger). But you know - she may have been slow, but she got a lot of things in the end! Some things will probably always be beyond her, like cycling, roller blading, swimming etc, but she can go up and down stairs without holding (that took her until about 7yo), jump (about 5yo), zip jackets (about 6yo) etc. Slow, yes, but we saved a lot of stress by letting her take things more slowly and she got there in the end.

As for speech, my daughter had a very large vocabulary in her mind (she could understand quite a lot, and I never dumbed-down my words for her), but was not very willing to speak much until past 2yo. Her articulation wasn't too good initially, but she mastered the various speech sounds in the end, though at the later end of 'normal'. I guess STs would have considered her delayed, but again, she was talking normally by school age.

I'm not saying don't do anything, just don't let professionals scare you. Sometimes, slow doesn't mean they will never get it, and hurrying them just causes a lot of stress all round.

[Couragemom]

Hi Simkhoo,


Yes, I need to discern between the things my child can do (albeit slower than others) and things he may simply cannot do because of his underlying condition. I will pace myself and not get too stressed up. Case in point - drinking water from a cup. My DS cannot gauge very well, so either never tip enough for water to flow or over-tip then wet his clothes. After consulting with his OT, we regressed him to a tippy cup to train his hand muscles 1st and now both of us are happier! Btw, he can drink from a straw bottle.