My boys are all grown up, but I hope that it's OK for me to ask a question?
When my oldest (Jason) was little, I worried that he had Autism, but at that point in time, Autism wasn't something very well understood, and so they just said he was hyper-active. But when I read the symptoms online recently, I see so much of him in them - refusing to be held or cuddled, stiff like a board as a baby, not making eye contact, extreme hyperactivity, constant tantrums, obsession with cars, unable to play well with other children, terrible time dealing with change, impulsive and no fear of danger, constantly practicing words.
I did have him assessed when he was 4y old, but they didn't know enough back then and just said I was a good mom with a bad child.
Anyhow, he is all grown up now, works as an auto-mechanic and has an 11y old child of his own, and he is doing OK. So I guess I will never know?
With my youngest (Josh), he seems much different than his older brother so I didn't think that there was anything wrong. Oh, there were small things, he could not walk up stairs one foot at a time for years, could not learn to ride a bike, cut with scissors or tie his shoes till so much later that all the other kids.
But he has a very technical mind - while I wanted to read him picture books, he wanted to read book on building bridges at 4y old. He constantly built cities with his toys, going into great detail - it had to be exactly like some place real he had been. He had an obsession with buses, and could tell you everything about the different styles of buses.
But he was so much quieter and easier to deal with than his brother, I was even grateful that he learned to walk and talk much later, and never worried about that part of his health. He has other health concerns that took up all of my time and thoughts.
We thought it was cute that he talked in sounds instead of words. Has anyone ever heard of a child doing that? Instead of saying the word "dog", he would bark. Instead of saying the word "cat", he would meow. Instead of the word "car", he would make the sound of a car revving. Listening to him tell a story was very unique!
But since he grew up, I have started to wonder if he has Asperger? He appears to have a social phobia, that he has worked really hard on lately. He never did well in public even as an infant, he would just bury his head in my chest and cry. The few time I took him into a school environment, he just hid under the table and cried.
I homeschooled him, but when I would take him to homeschooling get-togethers he would beg to go home. I tried to put him into Beaver's (for kids to young for Cub Scouts) but when they would not let me stay with him, he refused to go back. He even refused to go out for Halloween as a little kid, and begged to stay home from family get-togethers like Christmas.
Josh is currently working in a retail clothing store which has gone a long way to getting him better at talking to and interacting with people. But he has never even come close to having a girlfriend at 21y, has no friends other than the people he has recently met at work, and he gets so depressed about this.
Anyhow, I think you guys are the experts - does it sound like my boys may be in the Autism spectrum? Not that there is anything I can do about it now - but if there was more I could do to help my youngest, my heart aches for him most days...
(Sorry, I did sign out first from my CL name and it shows my regular user name up top where it says Welcome, so I'm not sure why my yellow hat and CL user name is still showing?)
~*~ Catherine, mom to Jason, Michael & Joshua
