When and how did your child get diagnosed?

La - posted on 03/12/2011

My daughter is almost 26 months old now and has been receiving occupational therapy 3x/wk since her initial evaluation. She will be starting speech therapy as well within the next month. All my suspicions were correct. She is currently not diagnosed, but her therapists and doctor are leaning towards PDD-NOS. The progress she has made since starting early intervention is phenomenal!

Donna - posted on 03/11/2011

I didn't notice any big differences until my son was around 2 years old. His sister is 361 days older and was talking up a storm at the same age he was barely saying anything. What he did say seemed to only be noises, no connection was being made as to their meaning. No one believed me, not even my husband. Finally the preschool/daycare he and his sister attended said something and the evaluation began. Trust your mother's intuition!

I would love to hear how your appointment with early intervention went. Did you get answers? Were they the ones you were expecting?

Jennifer - posted on 03/10/2011

Hi Laura, Yes I believe that motheres intuition is amazing and very acurate. The moment you have that not so sure feeling go ahead ... My son was diagnosed at 18 months I am one of the lucky ones. The earlier the better that more chance you have for early intervention..... On another note if its nothing now your mind can rest at ease...: )

Jennifer - posted on 03/09/2011

Hello everyone my daughter was 11 months old when i noticed something was wrong she would stand but she would only go to her knees so i got in contact with early intervention and they worked with her, finally she walked at 15 months i was so happy, she was a year old when she was diagnosed with autism she had a MRI done on her brain had blood pulled to check her chrome a zones and also her hearing checked, she is know 2 years old she is attending occupational therapy and speech therapy she is doing really good too less screaming and less melt downs therapy has helped her a lot!

Nita - posted on 03/09/2011

wow! a lot of the same stories i am reading here are mine! my daughter is high functioning. i noticed that she wasn't "firing on all cylinders" so to speak between 2 and 3. sure, all kids line up there toys, but she never seemed to outgrow it or other "patterns". amanda mckinley is almost telling our story.same with heidi and especially amanda sandell. our school psychologist did a carsII test on her and she landed on the asperger's end. extremely bright, always been the top of her class, bored easily. i actually got a lecture on "how dare i teach my child anything before she starts school" because she knew all of her colors, numbers, etc before pre-k. but she too is an only child. i actually had her kindergarten teacher tell me that if she had siblings at home she wouldn't be such a bad kid. whoa! well, now we're fighting the school board to actually accept her diagnosis because they don't want to front any funding. she's now 7 and at the end of 2nd grade but her behavior has completely been in a downward spiral and i am ready to scream. it's funny...like heidi said, because you don't really notice the magnitude of the situation until you start placing the puzzle pieces together and researching. i pray that God helps all of you on your journeys! i know He is with us on ours!

Brooke - posted on 03/09/2011

I looked after my sisters a lot, so when my son was young, I honestly thought that the differences were only because he was a boy, and an only child!
Although, I love books, and always encouraged him in reading and intellectual pursuits, but by the time he was 4, I was worried that I had concentrated too much on that and not enough on emotions and such, because he seemed to have no empathy, he could not control his feelings, he would melt down over the strangest things (His potato was between the meat and the pumpkin, instead of on the side?!?!). When he was in kinder, his teacher asked me if she could get someone in to observe him, as she had noticed the same thing. I went home and cried that day, I though I was a bad parent and I had failed my child. The diagnosis did not come then, although they agreed that there was definitely issues.
Also, speaking to his friend's Mum, I discovered that no, it's not every kid who lines up his beans according to size, or knows every one of his 200-odd toy cars.
The next year, at school, his teacher said the magic word- Aspergers. I said "Huh?" I had no idea what it was! My hubby printed out some info at work and brought it home. As I read it, I just knew that it was true. I didn't need a diagnosis. There were some things we had never experienced, but mostly it was like someone had written specifically about my son.
I wish i had known what it was earlier, i would have understood my child a lot more.
Thinking back, there were many signs that I never put together, such as crying because the kids at daycare were clapping, (he couldn't handle the noise), we used to sing the ABC song before bed, but decided we had better stop that when the daycare lady told us that he would throw himself on the floor and scream every time they sang it.
There was the day that we thought we would surprise him with his new "big boy" seat in the car- well, what a disaster that was!
So yes, if I had been a bit more experienced with boys, I would have known that there were oddities. I'm just glad I know now.

Shana - posted on 03/06/2010

My child has not been officially been "diagnosed." Her neurologist said, "she may be on the sprectrum." I was reading Jenny McCarthy's book, Louder Than Words, when I thought my child could have autism. She was only 3 months old!! I have two older 'typical' children and knew she was different. Of course, the doctors all told me it was too early to tell. But, all I read was early intervention......Agh....My Alice started having seizures at 4 wks old and is very delayed. She likes patterns, textures, faces, hands, and jewelry.....more so that the average child. She stares at her hands oddly. I am happy to say she is off of her seizure meds. We see an Upper Cervical Chiropractor in ATL. Babies Can't Wait come to the house and we hope to get her started at Jacob's Ladder Center in ATL, soon. She is only 19 months and just started sitting up,when placed, in December. She side-sits and does a very slight army crawl. She will not go to a sitting postion on her own, yet. I hope this helps.

Amy - posted on 03/06/2010

My son is almost 8. We started noticing changed around 18 months. He reached all the milestones ahead of time talking and walking b4 he was 1 Then it seemed all of a sudden he quit talking, wouldn't make eye contact, started lining things up in a row(like cars). I had not idea what autism was except for the movie Rainman so I did know any of the symptons until people started mentioning it.I started researching and he had alot of them. Started speech therapy at 2, he wasn't diagnosed with PDD-NOS until he was almost 4. He was not potty trained, I had to sneak out of the house to go to the store and it was a quick trip because he would scream the entire time I was gone. We also had early intervention services which I believe helped alot. He is now in 2nd grade with no helper and with kids not on the spectrum. We have also done alot of things along the way besides early intervention but that was the beginning.

La - posted on 03/06/2010

My daughter is 13 months old and:
-doesn't answer to her name
-doesn't say any words
-doesn't imitate sounds or actions
-doesn't point or follow your pointing
-doesn't wave
-throws tantrums that we can't console
-her attention can only be held by one specific TV show
-doesn't pay attention to anyone or anything around her
-shakes her head, hand flaps, or holds her arms in weird positions when walking
-won't eat certain food textures and will only eat when standing
-doesn't play with toys appropriately (will only throw them on floor or chew on them)

She has developed gross and fine motor skills appropriately and will make some eye contact especially with me. She isn't affectionate at all but will let me hold her anytime and lets Dad hold her most of the time as well. It's so frustrating because I can't leave the house or run errands for more than 30 min before she starts freaking out...she has to be constantly moving or stimulated by new objects or sights or she will start screaming and flailing. I really hope that the early intervention program will help with some of these issues because I don't know what to do to help her.

Amanda - posted on 03/04/2010

I didn't suspect a thing with my son. He is high functioning and we thought his delays were because he is an only child and he didn't have a lot of interaction with other children at the time, also my nephews both have speech delays so I didn't really have a 'norm' to compare him to.
I started suspecting autism when he had just turned 3 and a friends daughter was diagnosed but I assumed I was just over-reacting and it wasn't until a few months later when his childcare workers brought it up to me that I had him tested.

Heidi - posted on 03/04/2010

my son had just turned 9 when his speech and phyc said he had aspergers and when i told his teachers they all said "gee he is too, would never of thought it if you didnt put all the puzzles together" he showed signs at the age of 18 mths but everyone just said hes a boy and they are slower than girls.im sadened the signs werent picked up earlier as there is really no intervetion for older kids

Amanda - posted on 03/03/2010

I didn't notice until 2 and a half. I thought she was some sort of genious. Talking at six months, counting by one year. I used to think it was so cute how she knew exactly where we were going by the roads we took. Until she started screaming if we took a different road and had fits if the windows were down or the sun was shining. Refused to use the toilet until she was four ( she could read before she was potty trained), hated wearing clothes or shoes, started repeating everything twice, refused to make the s sound, constantly walked on her tiptoes, jumped up and down screaming and waving her arms over the slightest upset, had to be wrestled into her carseat, needed two adults to bathe her because she was terrified of water( thought for sure the neighbors were going to call dss over the screaming) and still has not been to the dentist (even though she is six) because ,well you get the idea. As far as being diagnosed, I am still waiting for a proper diagnosis because we live in the back woods of nowheresville where apparently autism only means your child doesn't talk. (Can you sense my frustrastion). And yes I think early intervention would help.

Andrea - posted on 03/03/2010

Hi Laura. Yes, I had a feeling since my daughter was about a year, that she was different in a lot of ways from other children. She was texture, sound, and color sensitive from that early on. She was diagnosed with developmental delay at about one year and later at four, was diagnosed with P.D.D.N.O.S./ O.C.D. by her neuro/psych. PDD-NOS stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Which means that she has some signs of autism, but they are expremely evident or she has most or all of them, but not that obvious and there isn't enough evidence to fully diagnose them fully autistic. My daughter has some signs, but are very evident. I hope you get the answers you're seeking for. God bless.