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DT154
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08 Feb 2017, 3:47 pm

So if a child who is 3 and 5 mos. can:
- ask for things
- speaks in full, clear sentences
- uses pronouns correctly
- uses adjectives
- has good eye contact with family and adults
- have a small conversation (not more than one or two reply)
- seems not to have any sensory issues
- comments on things ('daddy, see the spider?')
- plays with brother fine
- asks 'what is that?', 'where is mommy/daddy/brother's name/grandma?', 'what are you doing?', 'can you play with me'
- point to things in books and labels objects, characters without being asked first what/who they are
- shows joint attention all day long
- can change to any channel on the remote if asked to do so
- can use the touchpad on a laptop
- completely potty trained
- can dress himself
- can throw and catch a ball
- can tell you where he hurt himself

But:
- still doesn't know how to reply to or ask 'why' questions
- still cannot ride a tricycle
- can't follow multiple-step commands
- cannot tell a story, sustain conversations
- still has a bit of Echolalia (but seems to be lessening)
- will not talk to other children, but plays alongside them fine and sometimes will approach them, but shys away from them when eye-contact is made
- plays with toys normally, but seems to say the same things when talking to self
- transitioning from his own world to another activity can sometimes start tantrum

does this sound HFA?

I'm still not sure. thanks. :?



DT154
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08 Feb 2017, 3:52 pm

Forgot to mention:
- can eat using utensils

But:
- extremely picky eater



sweetperfume
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08 Feb 2017, 7:37 pm

I'm sorry if this comes off as preachy, especially since I'm not a parent and technically don't belong in this section of the forum, but why do you need a functioning label for your child at all? You already know what he can do and what he struggles with, and labeling him high- or low- functioning going to change that or change the way you treat him?



somanyspoons
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08 Feb 2017, 10:37 pm

Of course, we can't diagnose your child online. But the character traits you are listing are not those that are shared by people with autism. High functioning or low functioning are outdated terms. (And a little offensive to some.) But it doesn't matter if your kiddo isn't on the spectrum.

A three year old is not expected to play cooperatively with others. Its not unusual at all for them to be shy around other children or to struggle with a tricycle.

If you feel like there might be something subtle going on with your son, you can bring him in for an evaluation. Your pediatrician can probably point you in the right direction. But you aren't listing any missed milestones here. Sometimes autistic deficits don't show up right away. I mean that they don't become an issue until about 7 years old. There are also a couple of learning disabilities that you might be on the lookout for. One is called dispraxia. But again, nothing on that list makes me think he's not fine.



sweetperfume
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09 Feb 2017, 2:22 am

I realize now that I misinterpreted your question. I thought that you were saying that your son had already been diagnosed with autism and you were trying to figure out whether he would be considered "high functioning" or "low functioning", when I see now that you were wondering if your son could be autistic at all. Sorry for my earlier response.



DT154
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09 Feb 2017, 10:53 am

Thanks. Actually he was placed in an IEP preschool. The school district evaluated him and declared him as 'slightly elevated' for Autism. Since the assessment (Sept.) he has made a lot of progress.



DT154
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09 Feb 2017, 10:58 am

A three year old is not expected to play cooperatively with others.

Hmmm... This is not at all what the school psychologist and speech therapist said. In fact they said the exact opposite.



ASDMommyASDKid
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09 Feb 2017, 2:02 pm

I am not a hundred percent sure exactly what you are asking either. Your son sounds on the spectrum, but I would have no way of knowing if it is NT with an autistic lean or if autistic, what severity level to put him in.

If he is on an IEP, I assume that if he was evaluated and given an IEP that you and they have concerns with how he would function without one.

So to me, the question is how well is he adapting and does he or does he not need scaffolding or adaptations/modifications and the like. The specific label is beyond the point other than to get your child an appropriate education and other assistance if it is needed.

Disclaimer: I am incredibly rigid and getting the right nomenclature was incredibly important to me when I had issues with the specifics of it. Wise people here told me not to waste clock cycles on it -- but I continued to grind on it for a long time. So this is one of those do as I say, not as I did kind of things. :) Autism is a spectrum with a lot of variance, and is attempts to specifically create a taxonomy of neurology has not been very effective.



somanyspoons
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09 Feb 2017, 3:25 pm

DT154 wrote:
A three year old is not expected to play cooperatively with others.

Hmmm... This is not at all what the school psychologist and speech therapist said. In fact they said the exact opposite.


If your child is showing some subtle signs that something is up, and the district has decided to provide early education, that's just wonderful. Sometimes practitioners need to ...orientate... things so that a child gets the services they think would help them. In general, it's best to let them do this as long as they are going down a path that's good for your child. They know the bureaucracy and what key words need to be heard.

So, my best thought is that my idea of what is cooperating with others and their idea is different. And that's OK. I've worked with that age. My nephews are that age. They ain't cooperating with anyone for nothin' unless it's on their terms! It's very normal at three years old for the world to be about me, me, me!! !! They will play with other children but it's not like they can collaborate on projects yet. They show moments of cooperation. Handing someone a toy, or suggesting another child can use a toy differently, but my opinion is that I wouldn't really call that cooperation yet. This website use the phrase "for a time" http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelop ... rowth.html. That seem about right to me. Every once in a while, things align and they really play together for a brief splat, but it's not something you should expect all the time.

Now, I was always a special education teacher, so I never really got to see a whole lot of typically developing children after I left college. I suppose it's possible that my ideas are skewed by this. And while my nephews are officially NT, my family is a hotbed of exceptionalism.

Regardless, your child is never going to qualify for high functioning autism because he has speech before the age of 4 (or was it 5? I can't remember.) HFA is supposed to be for people who have a significant speech delay. Your son might some day be labeled with Aspergers, where they placed kids who have no speech delay and no intellectual impairment. It doesn't really matter in the US, because they stopped using those labels. Its now ASD 1, 2, 3. Aspergers and HFA are both ASD 1 now. (In general. There are exceptions.)

It's really interesting, watching my NT nephew leave this stage and go onto having real friends for the first time. He's 4.5 now and suddenly, he would prefer to "go play" with other kids. Go figure! They run around in their PJ mask costumes doing god-knows what. When I was 4, I was still preferring to play alone. I remember fondly the paint station at school, where I spent almost every free play. And I liked the swings at recess, again, not with the other kids. They annoyed me. It wasn't until kindergarten (age 5.6) that I started to understand that I was alone, and that made me sad. But didn't know what to do about it. I distinctly remember wishing the boys would stop playing with the blocks so I could go play with the blocks. It did not occur to me to play with the boys.



mrshappyhands
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09 Feb 2017, 3:36 pm

Currently, no. A few things you mentioned could be indicative of a language disorder, however, he does use full sentences and can correctly identify objects. Honestly, I wouldn't worry yet because between the ages of 3-5 children develop at different rates. Some are more content to watch and observe or let someone else ask why, others are more tenacious. Things like how the information is presented to the child matter as well. At the age of three most children benefit from visual cues in regards to multi-step directions. The directions also should be very simple. This is a rather informative article with some great tips, facts, and other information. :)
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/art ... irections/


Socially, at the age of three most children are observing and content being near other children. Some do start to interact socially during play at the age of three, but that is actually a milestone associated with four year olds.

It sounds like the preschool is doing early intervention which is wonderful and will be beneficial regardless if he is normal or has a disorder. Just keep your eye on things, but don't stress. :-)



ASDMommyASDKid
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09 Feb 2017, 4:26 pm

somanyspoons wrote:
DT154 wrote:
A three year old is not expected to play cooperatively with others.



Regardless, your child is never going to qualify for high functioning autism because he has speech before the age of 4 (or was it 5? I can't remember.) HFA is supposed to be for people who have a significant speech delay. Your son might some day be labeled with Aspergers, where they placed kids who have no speech delay and no intellectual impairment. It doesn't really matter in the US, because they stopped using those labels. Its now ASD 1, 2, 3. Aspergers and HFA are both ASD 1 now. (In general. There are exceptions.)


Actually, my son is the "Little Professor type" and even though he was not in his chatty phase yet, he was not speech-delayed in the traditional sense and we got an HFA diagnosis. This was actually the very thing I was grinding about. This was back when HFA and Asperger's had separate diagnosis categories. I kept insisting that it should have been Asperger's and not HFA, and when I mentioned the lack of speech delay, the shrink argued that the pragmatic speech issues, echolalia et al were sufficient, which did not make sense to my literal mind at all --and I still don't agree, not that it makes any difference.

What I suspect was that we got HFA as the diagnosis to indicate a higher severity level than Asperger's is generally thought of having. Why they could not just tell us that, I don't know. My son scored in the 1/10 of one percent --percentile in social skills and I am sure that was the reason.

I think the thought was that with an Asperger's diagnosis it would not capture the severity of the disability in that sense and so would end up in a practical sense being more misleading than the wrong diagnosis.

TL:DR but the main thing is: I would not assume there are not still intentionally incorrect diagnoses being made to make up for whatever flaws the diagnostic system still probably has.



somanyspoons
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09 Feb 2017, 7:40 pm

Yah. The important thing is that he's safe and getting good early education services. If they need to put him in a category to get that - if it were my kid, I would be fine with that. Labels just don't matter to small children all that much, and you can get it corrected before he does care. I don't know where that line is, but it's after kindergarten for most kids, I would think.

Doctors tend to give diagnosis based on what services they think kids will need. It was maddening to me as a young teacher. I didn't understand myself enough to know that I'm more black-and-white than most humans. I just thought they were lying and getting away with it. But I see now that they are simply being social creatures. They are working the system that they have.

The way you are describing what is happening with your son is exactly why the new DSM V got rid the distinction between HFA and Aspergers. People were doing all sorts of funky things with it. There was no internal consistency and it turns out that wether you talk early or not doesn't have a lot of impact on the educational outcome for those of us without intellectual impairement. Unfortunately, we are still seeing the same thing with the ASD 1,2,3 system. Doctors are telling people all sorts of funky stuff. Like, they are saying that aspergers people don't qualify for autism, despite it saying right there in print that aspergers should be seen as equivalent to autism 1 in most cases.

Anyways... I have no idea if I'm being helpful or not here. I wish you and your son the best.



zette
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10 Feb 2017, 3:47 pm

What you describe sounds to be on the mild end of the autism spectrum, so yes, "high-functioning" would be an adjective you could currently use to describe your son.



kraftiekortie
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10 Feb 2017, 7:24 pm

Your kid seems very bright, with maybe some symptoms of a broadly "Aspergian" nature.

Truthfully, many 3-year-olds can seem "autistic" without actually being "autistic."

I would seek an assessment by a professional.

But, frankly, your kid seems to be in decent shape in many ways. It's possible that everything will "come together" once your kid gets older. Does your kid have fits when his/her routine is tampered with. If not, I might doubt that your kid is autistic at all.

It's good, though, that your kid is receiving early intervention.



DT154
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10 Feb 2017, 7:32 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Your kid seems very bright, with maybe some symptoms of a broadly "Aspergian" nature.

Truthfully, many 3-year-olds can seem "autistic" without actually being "autistic."

I would seek an assessment by a professional.

But, frankly, your kid seems to be in decent shape in many ways. It's possible that everything will "come together" once your kid gets older. Does your kid have fits when his/her routine is tampered with. If not, I might doubt that your kid is autistic at all.

It's good, though, that your kid is receiving early intervention.


If you mean turning off a DVD he's been watching... then YES.



kraftiekortie
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10 Feb 2017, 7:49 pm

Honestly, I believe any three-year-old would throw a fit if his favorite DVD is shut off suddenly.

I wouldn't like it if, say, my wife shut off my football game right in the middle of it!