r/AutismParent

My son just turned 3 and his pediatrician flagged some developmental delays at his last checkup. We're trying to figure out next steps and keep seeing ABA therapy come up. Has anyone gone through the process of finding aba therapy for autistic toddlers Austin has available? Not sure where to even start with insurance or waitlists. Any guidance helps.

My son, now 5, had a lot of speech delay and went to ST for a while including early intervention and now has an IEP at school. He was diagnosed with autism at 2 but I am now a bit unsure whether it is accurate. The reason the doc gave at that time was diagnosing as autism helps with getting a wide variety of services and she'd rather have him get that and be misdiagnosed than not. Not particularly a red flag but as he progresses through the years, it is impacting our decisions about schooling etc.

His speech is still extremely limited and he only speaks a few sentences and has a vocab of about 200 or so words. He cannot seem to understand a lot of things spoken to him yet and struggles with multi step directions. His younger sibling at 2 probably speaks at the same level if not better than him. But...he is social, seems to be good with numbers, can get along well with siblings including turn taking and sharing, can communicate through non-verbal means (showing or bringing stuff), can write letters and read some and does well with cognitive activities such as matching or arranging. There are also no motor deficiencies that are observed...he can run, ride a bike, kick a ball, catch a ball, cut with scissors and so on.

I guess my question is whether it is worth any to go for a re-diagnosis if it doesn't change anything materially. And, whether autism is overdiagnosed? Or whether severe speech issues by itself can qualify as autism, which seems to be a very broad catch all term.

Sorry, it’s my first time using Reddit and I need help with my younger brother with level 3 ASD. He’s not potty trained and always wear diapers, and when he was younger he would wear clothes at home too until he turned like 7-8, where he would retaliate and not wear clothes. Also, he use to engage with numbers and use the tablet to communicate because whether or not he is verbal or non-verbal, everyone should use it, but now he doesn’t communicate with the family, or at least try. I think I failed him in everything, like I think he regressed around the ages of 7-8 and we used to have occupational therapy for him until it was discontinued. Plus, my dad seems to have given up on teaching him and just does all my brother’s needs for him, by taking care of the diapers, feeding him (like spoon-feed him while he’s on the couch), and showering him. At what point does this be beneficial for my brother? I want him to be able to live independently and happy and be able to communicate, but that seems far out of reach as my mom use to actively and it worked to help him and do math numbers and stuff even (potty trained always remained a problem however) but ever since she started working out of town, things went downhill and it’s my fault too for not giving my all to him too. Also like most serve cases, my brother would hit his head to where even holes on the wall occurs and it’s just heartbreaking to see him hurt himself in the head, like what occur him too and how do I stop it because I don’t believe hitting his hands would stop it even if temporarily does when my dad does it.. also the helmet thing he would always take it off and my parents long abandoned it. I feel like my brother has worn out in wanting to learn things, always in his room and phone, (and an obsession with ripping paper too and littering it all over which is the least of my concerns tho.) So, what can I do or do I do to help him be able to take care of himself?

I can't believe I am at a place where I am looking to the internet for support, but here I am.

My son is 13 years old and we only recently realized he is auDHD. I feel terrible for missing it for so long. He was a miserable baby with lots of allergies and often sick. He has always been hard on himself, and for years he would hit himself in the head when he was upset. He doesn't understand social cues, is extremely black and white about everything, obsessed with things being fair, and can dysregulate in embarrassing ways, which we always put down to being "tantrums."

We didn't put this together with autism because he is very good at things. Super smart, quickly picks things up, and naturally athletic. He was always able to fit in because he was good at everything and other people appreciated that.

Now that he is going through puberty, it is like a switch has flipped. He is suddenly dysregulating at inopportune times. Sports games have become a nightmare. Where he has always been so talented he now freaks out when he misses a catch in baseball, is back to hitting himself in the head when he pitches poorly, cries loudly when he gets out. It is intense. His teammates are making fun of him and he is noticing. He feels awful about himself at all times.

My husband thinks he should be benched unless he controls himself and should learn how to so he doesn't become "the weirdo." (My husband is a loving supportive Dad, who will stand up for his kids to anyone at anytime, and is likely also AuDHD, was similarly hard on himself, but does not understand that our son can't help it.)

My son feels like he has no friends, feels like he is "retarded," and that he is not good for anything. I feel so alone in trying to help him every second, and also feel like I am not helping at all. It is getting so hard.

Reading other parents' posts, I feel like I don't even have much to complain about in comparison - my son is verbal and freely gives out hugs and is well-adjusted in so many ways, but we are both hurting so badly and feeling so alone.

I have a three year-old level three nonverbal autistic son. He is scheduled to have his tonsils and adenoids out, and tubes put in his ears. I have a friend who’s 12-year-old daughter just had this done and it was absolutely miserable. Has anyone done this on a autistic child so young?? What should I be expecting? Help

Are there any parents out there struggling with their kids personal hygiene on a massive scale? Please no judgement as I've been trying My best but my girl hasn't let me touch her hair beyond a quick tie up in 3 months, it's fine and curly and now it's just a big matted mess on her head. I just can't convince her to try and sort it out, which means cutting it is off the cards right now too. She's pda too.

Hygiene in general is hard, we've got several different toothbrushes, bath toys, toothpastes, hair brushes. I've tried many different ways- from wipes and mouthwash to fun baths, hair brushing in front of the tv, outside in the sun, to quick bath or shower. She feels a lot of shame around her hair now, as her friends all seem to be on top of it. I've tried taking the pressure off, having salon days as a household, tried to span the care across several days... Im exhausted and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, my kid is starting to turn from a lovely, sweet boy into a kid I don’t like. He’s swearing at me, trying to hurt me. He’s a big boy and physically I am struggling with him.

For my birthday I decided to take us all to the circus (just acrobatics and a clown). We bought more expensive seats to accommodate him, went early so he could look around and spoke to the staff about him being able to stand at the back / leave whenever he needed.

Despite all of this he refused to come in. Wouldn’t even look inside. Starter running into the parking lot etc. i had to physically manhandle him to keep him safe as I had to get back to the tent in order to swap with my husband. I explained multiple times that no acts were on but he point blank refused and was making himself unsafe. In the end he and my husband sat in the car for the whole thing. I am so angry at him that he didn’t even try, he was texting me from my husband’s phone (my husband didn’t know) swearing at me and telling me he hates me.

It is just because he would rather be on his iPad than do anything else. This happens every time I try to do anything, even something he enjoys, even somewhere he has asked to go… I told my husband I am done taking him anywhere and that I think we need to seriously address the iPad issue. Both of which my husband disagrees with, says his iPad is good for him and teaches him a lot but it also teaches him bad things like the swearing.

I think this is the finally straw for me. The past 6–12 months have been getting progressively worse. We are planning a trip to Disney but I told my husband I don’t want to go anymore as we will spend thousands just for him to ruin everyday, it isn’t just that he doesn’t want to do something, he gets mad at me about not wanting to do the thing so starts trying to physically hurt me and say mean things even if it is something he likes / has done before for some reason him not wanting to do it is my fault? My husband thinks I am being unreasonable but I just feel done.

My 13 year old PDA autistic daughter has barely spoken to me on her own in about 6 months, and I honestly feel like I’m mentally breaking.

I’m a single mom. It’s just me, her, our dog, and our cat in the house. I have no partner to tap out with.

For anyone familiar with pathological demand avoidance, you know how quickly a household can become centered around keeping the child regulated because almost everything can feel like a threat or demand to them. I understand that her nervous system is struggling. I understand this isn’t “intentional cruelty.” I understand PDA is rooted in anxiety and control, but I am exhausted.

Every single time I speak to her, whether we’re at home or in public, it’s immediately “don’t talk to me”, “stop”, “I hate you”, or just screaming at the top of her lungs. Sometimes she acts like hearing my voice genuinely hurts her ears.

She used to do this with one of her teachers too, and thankfully it has eased up there, so I’m trying to hold onto hope that this phase can improve with me too. We recently started working with a new psychiatrist and some medication changes actually do seem to be helping overall, which is the only thing giving me hope right now.

I keep asking myself what I did wrong. I’ve spent her whole life trying to support her however I could with therapies, OT, activities, sports, safe people, accommodations, advocating at school, trying to make home feel safe. She used to be my best friend. We did everything together, now I feel completely alone in my own home.

I don’t even necessarily need advice. I don’t know. I think I just need to know if anyone else has gone through this level of rejection from their PDA child and whether it ever softened. Because right now I’m terrified this is just our relationship forever.

Just curious what speech progression looked like for your children. I know all kids are different, especially ND kids. My son is 2.5 years old. He has about 70-75 consistent words that he uses for single word requests (ex. He will hand lead us to his water bottle on the counter and say “water”) or for general naming and labeling (example he sees a cow on TV and says “cow” or sees cars in a parking lot and says “blue car”). He is not currently conversational at all and does not call out for us from another room or anything like that. His receptive skills are delayed for his age for sure but not horrible. For example if we say “go get your shoes” he can grab them and sit by the door to put them on. He’s in early intervention for speech but to be honest it’s not often and they really don’t do much with him at all. We’re itching for the day we can get him in legitimate speech therapy but we live in a small town with very little resources for kids under 3 (we’re moving soon). In the meantime we try to work with him as much as possible. When did your kids go from single words to more functional speech? TIA!