u/Izz-An-Art

Hi guys. I have a 3 year old level 2 boy. He is usually sweet and calm can communicate using scripts (limited). Plays with toys functionally. We suspect PDA too but we aren't sure

For the past 1 month, his behaviour has been getting worse. His frustration tolerance is all time low. He has started high pitched screaming, smacking me across the face, throwing things high in the air and they hit random people, started screaming instead of using words he used to use when he is frustrated, angry or upset. He also stims by jumping and pacing when angry or upset.

He only receives speech therapy and is on waitlist for OT.

He has also started screaming at his therapist when she puts a demand on him. Even when I call his name, he responds with a high pitch scream. I ask him to eat his dinner and he responds with a high pitched scream. He is really impatient these days, doesn't try to understand what I'm saying.

I'm losing my shit and I hate to admit this but I yell back at him sometimes when I can't take it anymore and he gets scared and starts crying. Yesterday, I spanked him too because he threw his toy bus in the air out of anger and it hit his grandfather. I felt so guilty and cried about it later. He isn't taking interest in toys or activities he previously enjoyed these days.

We do not have ABA where I live.

If anyone has been in a similar situation, please help.

Idk what causes it and how to help him. Is it sensory? Behavioural?

My boy is 3 years old. He is a gestalt language processor with receptive language delay. He communicates functionally with scripts. He has a lot of nouns, Colours, shapes, verbs but he has trouble understanding abstract things that aren't objects or things he can see or experience. He can follow routine instrucions not novel ones.

He does not understand long sentences and just stores them as scripts without understanding what each word means in those scripts but he uses them in context. He memorizes answers to questions without understanding.

He also says some weird stuff like "give me pink up" "give me blue down"???? Also, he heard someone say "focus on your work" at daycare and he came home and said "give me focus" for so many days. Then he thought maybe focus means fork because they sound the same and started calling fork "focus" and he also heard someone say "come here, buddy" understood come here but not "buddy" and kept repeating it for entire two months and came to me several times saying "I want buddy" "give me buddy" like he thinks its an object.

Do kids with receptive lang delays have poor prognosis or eventually end up with ID diagnosis? If anyone has any exprience with this, please share in the comments.

Hi guys, I have a 3 year old who is in speech therapy and on a waitlist for OT. No ABA here.

He is semi-verbal and a gestalt language processor. His receptive and expressive language is delayed.

He has recently started screaming (loud high-pitched screams all day long at home and outside followed by verbal stimming) at every minor inconvenience instead of using words he could use and also throws things high in the air in anger. He is frustrated all day. I tell him not to scream all day, he stops in that moment but does it again. I have tried everything distraction, redirection, taking toys away. Nothing works.

- Someone touches his toy ---> Scream

- Someone does not hand over something immediately ---> Scream

- Told no---> Scream

- Asked to wait ---> Scream

- Want something ---> Scream

- Asks me to say non-sensical words and sounds like "say Pay pay" "say ba ba" "say bopo" and if I say No, I'm not saying that ----> Scream

Is this sensory related or behaviour related?

Asking in this group because I do not have access to OT or BT where I live.

Hi, everyone. I have a 3 year old who is an avid sensory seeker who loves all kind of sensory input crashing, spinning, jumping, pacing, loud vocalizations, seeking loud noises but with severe oral hypersenstiviyy, he cannot tolerate food textures, cutting his nails or hair. He scripts non-stop when outside and elopes too (I believe its sensory).

Do they outgrow these behaviours as they grow up or no?

Hi everyone,

I hope it's okay to post here as a parent seeking advice. If this isn't the right place, I apologize. Unfortunately, where I live, OT waitlists are years long, and private OT isn't financially possible for us right now.

My son is 3 years old and autistic and semi-verbal. He also has very severe anxiety and significant oral sensory sensitivities that seem to be getting worse.

Brushing his teeth is extremely difficult. He fights it as though it's physically painful, and he often gags during brushing. He has no truly "safe" foods. There are periods when he'll eat a small variety of preferred foods (although he's always been very selective), but then he'll suddenly stop eating them altogether. During these times, he may refuse all food, including smoothies. Sometimes he seems disgusted by the sight of food and will gag even with foods he previously accepted.

He appears highly sensitive to textures both in his mouth and on his hands. He frequently wipes or cleans his tongue throughout the day, seemingly trying to remove any sensation or texture. While eating, he often stims with food still in his mouth, takes only a few bites before spitting it out, and then refuses the rest of the meal. He also constantly touches different areas inside his mouth with his fingers to get rid of the sensation. When any wet thing or food touches his hands he gets sooo disgusted and asks me to clean it immediately.

I've noticed that exposure doesn't seem to help because his oral sensitivity fluctuates so much from day to day. Foods that were accepted yesterday are often treated as completely unfamiliar today. He also repeatedly rubs food or playdough on his lips before interacting with it further, almost as if he's checking the texture first.

Since turning 3, things have become significantly worse. He often won't feed himself and sometimes will only eat if I hand-feed him, and even that doesn't always work.

At the moment, he's maintaining a normal weight and height. His pediatrician's only recommendation was Pediasure, which hasn't addressed the underlying issue.

My son's severe anxiety also limits our ability to try sensory strategies (heavy work/proprioceptive activities) at home, and he won't tolerate touch near his mouth.

I'm struggling to understand whether sensory dysregulation is driving the feeding difficulties, whether his severe anxiety is worsening the sensory issues, or if it's a combination of both.

We're currently on a waitlist for OT. In the meantime, is there anything I can do at home to support him or make eating and oral care less distressing?

I'd be very grateful for any advice, suggestions, or experiences you can share. Thank you.

Hi everyone. My child is diagnosed with ASD and also seem to have PDA. I took my child to a bounce house, and he tried to climb a climbing wall but couldn’t figure out how to do it. Instead of looking down and placing both feet on the climbing holds/blocks (footholds), then grabbing the holds above and pulling his body upward, he was using his knees to push himself up. He kept trying to slide himself upward with his knees and would repeatedly slip back down.

After 1–2 failed attempts, he became very anxious and resistant to trying again. I gave him a lot of verbal instructions and physical cues, but he wasn’t able to listen, follow, or understand the steps in the moment. He saw younger kids climbing up successfully, but he still didn’t want to try after failing. I’m not sure if he couldn’t figure out the motor planning involved, if fear was taking over, or if something else was going on. He also refuses to hang from pull-up bars because he is afraid of falling or maybe failing. Brain is on alert mode all the time.

He does not have any gross motor delays or known coordination issues. However, he has high anxiety and avoids trying new things, activities, or tasks because he is afraid of failing. You often have to encourage or push him to try, and once he succeeds, he usually becomes comfortable and can do it. He also has no safe foods, he eats foods he has eaten so many times like he is trying for the first time. He is literally scared of everything. Big control issues.

Right now, he only receives speech therapy. Where I live, the waitlists for occupational therapy are extremely long, so I don’t currently have access to OT.

Does anyone have advice? What could be causing this? How can I help him learn these types of skills and become more willing to try new things?

Hi, everyone. We're moving to Netherlands (Haarlem) from Germany and we have a 4 year old child diagnosed with autism. He is semi-verbal in German, isn't toilet trained yet and has some behavioural challenges, he's disruptive and has frequent tantrums but he's not violent and does not hurt anybody. He has high anxiety and gets scared when other kids scream or do rough play. He is a sweet and sensitive child. He is academically smart but has some attention and hyperactivity issues.

My question is what kind of schools are there for such children? I've been reading about Dutch education system and came to a conclusion that such children are not placed in mainstream but educated in Cluster 4 SO schools with other children with behavioural challenges and autism, ADHD.

The things that concern me is, my child will have limited exposure to language and NT peers which might affect his development. Also, he might pick up behvaiours or get violent or get hurt. Is that possible? How are these things managed in Cluster 4? I'm afraid he will regress or plateau. But I also know that he will be given more attention there and it might be a good setting for him.

If there are any teachers or parents who's kids go to cluster 4, please comment about your experience.

Thanks for reading my post.

Hello everyone. My 3 year old boy is diagnosed with autism recently. He has struggled with oral hypersenstivity since birth like he wouldn't breastfeed and only took bottle. When he was an infant, he would hypertaste his milk, he was difficult to wean and gagged on foods for a bit then stopped. He has always had trouble with oral hygiene and won't brush himself or let me brush. I have tried all kinds of brushes and toothpaste. Nothing works. He fights me when I brush his teeth.

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He goes through days where he will eat his safe foods, that too not himself, I have to run after with spoon to make him eat. He wouldn't touch food and won't eat with utensils (even tho he can). He has to rub food on lips to feel the texture. He hyperchecks his safe foods too everytime and gets scared like he is trying them for the first time but he would eventually eat them.

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Then he goes through periods where he can't tolerate any oral input at all, brushing feels like it hurts him physically. He takes 2 bites of his safe food, then starts spitting and won't eat again. He constantly cleans off his tongue to get rid of any texture or touch random parts in mouth to get rid of the stuck food. He also experiences sensory overload with liquids, take 3 sips then he is done. Can't take more, starts gagging. Screens/distraction works sometimes but not always. If he accidently gets food/any wet thing even milk on his fingers, he would be immediately be disgusted and gag.

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Then we go back to days when will eat his safe foods again but I have to feed him or he won't touch it. He also sometimes stims while he has food in his mouth like starts jumping or pacing to self-regulate.

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His pediatrician did nothing and only prescribed pediasure which he sometimes takes and sometimes does not. His issues are purely sensory. He has no problems with chewing food or anything

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The waitlists for OT where I live is 3-4 years and I cannot afford private. So basically, we've got no help. I can't deal with this anymore. I literally have to throw loads of food in the bin daily and I can't afford it anymore. Everyday is stressful, because what he ate yesterday, he might not eat today.

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How to solve this issue with oral sensory processing at home? Are there any tools I can use? Any exercises? Please help.

My son is 3, level 2 autism. We're not sure if he's PDA or ODD but he def has one of those. I have seen a lot of lvl2 asd kids who respond to structure and routines but my son hates them.

His brain is always in a fight/flight threat response mode that he can't learn anything despite having potential. I'm his mother and it's the same with me, even when I touch/play with his toys (parallel play), he gets soooo frustrated and throws them in the air, screams for 5 minutes. Sometimes he is nice but mostly he gets so anxious when someone touches his things.

Even something simple as "Let's wash our hands" "Let's go to the park" triggers a meltdown (screaming, whining, throwing toys out of frustration for 1 min)

On top of that, he's a gestalt learner, talks in scripts and also has some receptive language delay so no matter what type of language you use, he reacts the same way.

We have 9-10 meltdowns because of this lasting 2 minutes. Thankfully

Even something he loves like going in a car triggers a meltdown because I said "Go sit in the car, I'm coming"

He is very very disruptive at the restaurants. He screams, runs when thinga don't go his way and I tell him "No"

Idk if I should say this, but I'm embarassed of him in public when he does this and I get weird looks like yesterday we were at an amusement park and there were electric cars, he wanted to sit in the white one which wasn't working so the operator asked him to sit in the red car which was working, he got so upset that he gout out of the car and started screaming and pushing, kicking the car and the car operator told him to stop multiple times then asked me to stop him and "teach him some manners." "You need to discipline him". I had to grab my son while he resisted and slapped me multiple times and we got back home and I CRIED.

He is sensory dysregulated, I tried do make him do some proprioceptive activities but he immediately runs away and resists as soon as he senses I am making him do something.

He masks heavily in therapy (once a week OT and speech) and complies but he is very very defiant and awful with me.

I have read a lot of material on PDA but most of it for kids who understand verbal instructions well and understand what is being said to them and it never works on my child.

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If anyone has any advice, please let me know.

Why does he have so much anxiety? Why his brain is always threatend even when I lower demands? He is sooo scared to try new things like swings. His thinking is so rigid.

Hi. Today I took my 3 year old with ASD and high anxiety who has recently been having blinking eye movements which really concern him and he comes to me and says "mama.. fix eyes". We took him to an ophthalmologist who said his eyes were fine. Then we took him to a neurologist and my son was constantly climibing, running around, touching, grabbing everything inside his office and didn't even sit for 1 minute. The doctor said "I also suspect ADHD in him because he looks quite inattentive and hyperactive". The blinking eye movements were actually tics that he has been having recently. EEG came out fine.

My son is pre-verbal but it is realky difficult to get his attention when you show him something. He also constabtly runs around, climbs furniture excessively, impulsive, very poor emotional regulation, throws stuff in anger. Very very low frustration tolerance. Perfectionist. Regular sensory integration OT makes it better and calms him down a bit but when it's stopped, he goes back to his old ways. He doesn't care about routines. Very difficult with transitions. Very difficult to get his attention when attention is locked onto something. Gets bored with toys easily. He also develops hyperfixations/special interests but gets bored of them after 2-3 months. He elopes (just wanders aimlessly) outside.

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What signs did you see in your toddler that made you suspect ADHD? At what age they got diagnosed?

Hi everyone, I have a 3 year old diagnosed with autism and we're moving to Hamburg in July.

He is semi-verbal in my native language (Finnish).

He does not speak or understand German.

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I need information regarding:

He has difficulties with attention, elopement, language, anxiety.

-How long does it take to get a diagnosis in Hamburg?

- How long after the diagnosis do I have to wait for therapies?

-What kind of therapies are available?

-How long do I have to wait for him to be enrolled in Kita?

-Will he be provided with German language supports so he learns German before starting school?

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Thank you so much.

Anyone here has a child with autism? I'm moving from a different country to Münster and need information regarding therapies and Kita. Thanks

My only child is 3 and has been diagnosed with autism. He also has ARFID, and keeping him fed is a huge struggle. He is speech delayed and a GLP. I don’t want to have more children because I’m scared they might also have autism and my mental health is already in shambles. I don’t think I would be able to raise another child with autism. I don’t know how to raise him. I can’t believe the person I’ve become.

I see neurotypical children in my family and outside eating healthy foods, having conversations and playing with their parents, being well-mannered, calm, and well-behaved, going to school, enjoying birthdays, and I feel angry and jealous when I look at them. I come home and cry. I hate myself. I was never like this. How can I feel this way? Why can't I enjoy life with my kid? Why cant we have normal outings? Whenever we go out, all of my time and attention goes into managing him and his behaviours so he doesn't elope, he doesn't hurt himself or others, his meltdowns outside. All of my cousins and family members with neurotypical children constantly watch and judge my child, say mean things about him. ​

I don’t know how to make this feeling go away.

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Recently, my child has been diagnosed with autism so I've been doing my research.

I talked to lots of parents with children diagnosed with autism. Some of the kids were diagnosed level 3 around age 2-3.

I have noticed a group of autistic kids make huge progress and gains magically after turning 5 to the point they almost appear neurotypical with some sensory sentivities while others continue to develop language and other skills slowly into later childhood.

Both groups were receiving therapies.

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Does anyone know why does that happen? Why some make huge gains in language, behaviour, social attention after turning 5?

Hi, my 3 year old makes eye contact and responds to name, engages, stimming goes away, makes verbal requests and comments when regulated and looks like he has mild autism.

But when he is dysregulated or outside in overstimulating environments, all skills are lost like they were never there, he does not respond to name, wont make eye contact, stims, laughs uncontroably at random things, looks aloof multiple meltdowns, wont eat anything, verbal abilities drop and he looks severely autistic.

Anyone else's child is like this? What's the reason?

Hi guys, how hard is it to find a one bedroom apartment for a family of 3 (2 adults, 1 child) if you're currently looking for a job and have good amount of savings? 😪

My 3 year old is diagnosed with autism also has ARFID and high anxiety and also has some OCD features. He has sensory senstivities around food since he was an infant, he even used to hypercheck his milk. Around 16 months, he used to gag on food but it went away.

Birth till 2 years old, I was able to feed him somehow with distractions but it caused severe burnout in me.

He is now 3 years old, ever since he turned 3 he has become pickier than ever. He goes through cycles where he would eat variety of safe foods for 1-2 weeks then stop eating EVERYTHING altogether for 2-3 weeks, not even safe food and during those regression weeks he acts like food physically hurts his tongue like I would give him something to eat (his safe food), he would rub it on it mouth to check texture and then chew it and immeditaely spit it out, brush off his tongue. He holds food in his hands and is immediately disgusted by it, cleans hands immediately.

The waitlists for OT is years long where I live and it doesn't help him long term as I've tried private OT but I can't afford it anymore and it didn't help much we keep having these cycles where he would eat for 2 weeks (not a lot but he would still tolerate food), reject food for next 3 weeks and only drink his milk smoothie sometimes. During regression weeks, he would only eat packaged garbage crisps, cakes, candy, chocolates no real food at all. He doesn't have any physical issues with eating and his gag reflex and tongue get hypersensitive. He experiemces sensory overload with food.

I don't understand why we keep cycling between 2 weeks of tolerating textures and 2 weeks of not tolerating any real food textures. No purees smoothies or anything. He is picky both in terms of texture and taste.

Since a month, he has had restrictive diet due to oral sensory dysregulation and since past 2 days he hasn't eaten any solid food except for cake and he screams all day because he is hungry. No matter what I present, how I present food ever works because I think its sensory and anxiety related.

He is currently fine in weight and height for his age but he has lost 0.5kgs.

I've locked myself in the bathroom and I'm crying as I write this post.

Does it ever get better or does it only get worse? Eill he require a G tube in the future? What do I do?

Hi everyone. My child is 3 years old diagnosed with ASD (not given a level).

My question is when did your children start responding to their name consistently?

My child knows his name is 'xyz', he even points to himself and says his name but his name response is inconsistent. At home, he responds 70% of the time when dad and I call him and he is not engaged in anything. He looks at us.

When he is playing with a toy or engaged with something or he is looking at something, he does not look and ignores. And outside, name response is zero.

Today, my friend came over to our house and my child was looking outside the window and she called him thrice but he did not look. Idk what to do with it, I have tried everything.

Hi everyone, we're moving to Ireland from Germany with my 4 year old child diagnosed with ASD and GLP, also has a PDA profile. My husband is Irish and we are going to live with his mother as she is old, sick and can't care for herself and she isn't ready to move to Germany.

I know there isn't any therapy available for autistic children which is very unfortunate.

My child is semi-verbal and academically smart but has significant support needs. He is also a flight risk

So, my question is what preschool/school options available for autistic children like mine in Cork, Limerick and Galway? How long does it take after a diagnosis to get enrolled in school?

He knows some German and English but has mixed receptive expressive delay.