I think my 3 yr old nephew may be autistic...

bigmomma051204

There is no such thing as a "pre-school" check in most areas! In many areas, alot of children are seen when they are a couple of months old and then never see health visitor again!!

OP, if it was ME, i would ring health visitor and express my concerns. You can tell them who u are or not - they have a duty of care towards this child and if they are any good at their job, will at least listen to your concerns. This will then flag up that child with HV at least - thats the most u can do really without causing offence to Granny. Shame really that these under-developed children are coming out of cycles of family under-development. Ie, Niece needed extra support and with it, may have progressed well and made a better life for herself - which would have impacted on the child u are now worried about who also has a developmental delay, possibly caused or at least not helped by Mum's situation Sad really

Victoriahl

kingfisherblue wrote: »

I think I might be looking at this from a slightly different piont of view, based on some experience volunteering in a special school and being very involved with my local community of parents and disabled children.

The OP mentions that the mother of this child operates at around age 16, which is a few years lower than her chronological age. Could it be that the child has too little stimulation because his mother is unable to provide it? Could he have developmental delay because his mum does not know how to interact with her child and play with him , speak with him, sing to him?

I know of a few children with learning difficulties whose parents have learning difficulties - the children did not have much, if any, encouragement as very young children, so when they started school they were considerably behind their peers, educationally, emotionally, socially and behaviourally. This gap has widened because their parents have not been able to help their children, even when outside authorities have intervened.

It's interesting you should say this because she's never been very good at interacting with him- it's mostly been left to my SIL to do most of the stimulating play.
Even on weekends she's happy to stay in the house with him, her on the laptop whilst he potters around playing on his own. Obviously my SIL makes sure he's out doing stuff, but if it was left to his mother then I doubt he'd ever get the chance.
It's as if she does the basic childcare stuff, but anything imaginative or interactive is beyond her.

This is why I thought that when he started nursery he might sort of catch up in his lack of development; once he started playing with other little children a bit more- but there's still the fact he's never smiling or laughing or jabbering on, the way most children do.

I don't want to make out that my niece is some kind of half wit neglectful mother, whose child is locked up and starved of attention- it's really not like that! These are all underlying factors which I'm highlighting in the bigger picture, to make it clearer as to why I don't feel able to bring the subject up with them.

I've actually had conversations with my SIL about my niece, and she totally agrees that she needs to do more with him- she's always telling her off for not doing enough for the little boy, and for leaving a lot of it to my SIL. She's mentioned that she thinks my niece might be depressed- I think she's been to the doctors about it, so it's not totally like they're unaware of problems.
They're making her have driving lessons now so she's more independent, but its a very slow going process...

meritaten

If you all had any idea of how long it takes to get ANY help for ASD children - you wouldnt be saying 'wait until it gets picked up by nursery/school/HV. or how many parents have to fight to get a diagnosis which is ESSENTIAL to getting the help these kids need! the sooner the better, otherwise the most badly affected kids are put in mainstream schools which can be HELLL for them!
my nephew was put in mainstream school and it made him regress even further - once he had his diagnosis and went to specialised schooling he has come on in leaps and bounds!

Stressed_Out

daska wrote: »

TBH I have no idea, it doesn't fit with my experiences of autism but ASD is a huge spectrum and, the quote runs along the lines of "if you've seen one child with autism, you've seen one child with autism".

However! As a parent of a child with severe language delay (though totally unlike this child in all other ways from what you've said) I would suggest that you broach the subject of him not talking as well as his peers. If there is a problem then the sooner the Speech & Language therapist starts working with him the better his chance of catching up before he starts school.

But maybe you can do it subtly? If you have a local surestart would you be able to suggest that you and she take him to a playgroup together? (I suggest Surestart because they're closely tied to the other services - I often find the lady in charge of S&L or HVs or any number of them are around if I visit.) If not a call to the Health Visitors to express your concerns might prompt them to start balls rolling.

This is so true, I'll be using this quote in the future :-)

My LO is just getting all the visits atm ADS has been mentioned several times but it could be years before anything formal. I thought as I'd only ever seen one child with autism that they never gave any eye contact and just stayed away from other children and didn't mix. How wrong was I my LO loves other children and gives eye contact but still is 'we believe' on the spectrum, lots of other traits.

Savvy_Sue

FWIW, I think nursery had suspicions about DS1 who is 'on the spectrum', but they never said anything explicit to me, and I'm not sure if they were trying to say subtle things and would have said more if I'd picked up on them.

Nothing ever said in Primary, it was the end of year 11 before I was 'summonsed' to the school doctor.

By which time I knew he was 'different', I just didn't know why or how.

madjay

meritaten wrote: »

If you all had any idea of how long it takes to get ANY help for ASD children - you wouldnt be saying 'wait until it gets picked up by nursery/school/HV. or how many parents have to fight to get a diagnosis which is ESSENTIAL to getting the help these kids need! the sooner the better, otherwise the most badly affected kids are put in mainstream schools which can be HELLL for them!
my nephew was put in mainstream school and it made him regress even further - once he had his diagnosis and went to specialised schooling he has come on in leaps and bounds!

I agree with the fact it can take along time to be Statemented but I disagree a mainstream school can make a ADS child regress further. My son went to a main stream school, it was a up hill task in the begining but once the school got behind the idea of an ADS child in the school it work well for my DS but he did later tranfer to a specialist school.

Nicki

meritaten wrote: »

If you all had any idea of how long it takes to get ANY help for ASD children - you wouldnt be saying 'wait until it gets picked up by nursery/school/HV. or how many parents have to fight to get a diagnosis which is ESSENTIAL to getting the help these kids need! the sooner the better, otherwise the most badly affected kids are put in mainstream schools which can be HELLL for them!
my nephew was put in mainstream school and it made him regress even further - once he had his diagnosis and went to specialised schooling he has come on in leaps and bounds!

As quite a few of us are parents of kids on the autistic spectrum, I think you will find that we are all aware of how long the diagnosis process can take, and how long it also takes to get support put in place! That doesn't make it right however to bludgeon parents with a suspected diagnosis of autism for which they are not ready and not able to cope, with no clue on the part of the family member how to access this support or get a diagnosis either.

Not all local authorities have specialised educational provision for childen with autism, not all children with autism can have a place in specialist provision even with a diagnosis due to limitations on funding, and not all parents want their child to go to a special school and would rather try mainstream first. So a blanket statement that this child of whom you know nothing will experience HELLL in mainstream is unhelpful and scaremongering.

This child is already in nursery and will be starting reception soon. If things are as clear cut as OP suggests there won't be a long delay in getting his needs spotted. Any child who starts reception with no language in either his home or the host country's own language is going to come onto the SENCO's radar within days, and will be seen by the EP as an emergency case, and probably statemented by the end of the first term.

euronorris

Sorry if this has been answered already, but I couldn't see the response - has the child had his hearing tested recently? From your first post, my initial thought was 'Is he partially deaf?'.

Not saying he is, and not ruling out autism, but I don't think that a hearing problem should be ruled out either.

Lavender13

euronorris wrote: »

Sorry if this has been answered already, but I couldn't see the response - has the child had his hearing tested recently? From your first post, my initial thought was 'Is he partially deaf?'.

Not saying he is, and not ruling out autism, but I don't think that a hearing problem should be ruled out either.

Also, has he had a visual test, as it can alter his perception of the world around him, and affect how he reacts to it?

mummyroysof3

my son is only 2 and has a learning delay and i suspect autism and the first thing the consultant arranged was a hearing test. i didnt think there was an issue with his hearing and this was confirmed. he sees a speach therapist and has a lady come from inclusion support every week. he willbe 3 next month and we are already talking about support when he attends nursery in september.

i can see it is a very difficult situation for you and tbh dont know what to suggest other than to hope that something gets noticed by his nursery..do you ever take him/pick him
up?