Daughter's prognosis

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The OP is in Portugal.

Ah, thanks kraftie. I saw that his first language was Portuguese, but I didn't know if he was here, in Portugal, Brazil, or another country.

It's true. He could be from Brazil or some other Portuguese-speaking place. I went by a personal sense. Sorry about that.

No worries - you made sense! I just lived in Brazil for a while and we have a lot of Brazilians in my area which is why I was curious.

You're quite welcome!! I wish all the luck in the world, to you----and, all the progress in the world, to your daughter!!

We're Brazilian

There are actually pretty many Brazilians on here.

One comes from Rio. Another from a town near Belo Horizonte.

Well what progress are you hoping to see her make?

I mean trouble with autism is no intervention can make us 'normal' I mean I imagine it can help...but if the goal is normalcy then maybe not so much. Basically progress is being made if the autism symptoms that cause her distress can be managed...but the traits that don't cause her distress probably don't need so much focus.

Sometimes it helps to find ways to work around things. For instance I have trouble with eye contact and I think it would have helped more when I was a kid if instead of trying to force me without even explaining why you should make eye contact....the adults would have explained people think you're ignoring them if you don't look at them and showed me ways to kind of fake it like look in their direction but not right at them.

Sorry for going outside the topic but I have to say it; your French teacher really sucked in French if he thought that's how it should be written/talked!

I'd say that for any child, autistic or not, working from their strengths is a good approach.

I know for myself that being very good at certain things preserved some of mye self-esteem when I got older and started becoming aware of my social difficulties.

Autistic kids can be strongly motivated by their special interests. The special interest can become a platform from which to learn other skills, such as interacting with people and self-organization, if those skills become necessary for taking the special interest to a higher level. I know your daughter is small now, but it's incredible how fast these years pass, and she is entering the age where her interests will become more complex, although this depends a bit on her personal level of maturity.

I see other parents struggling with their neurotypical children, and what is obvious is that forcing kids to behave in a certain way tends to backfire, NT or autistic.

You are probably, right. You would think there would have have been some way to explain it, and it is not like the other kids in the class were not more NT than me, probably, and they could not puzzle out the pattern any better than I did.

I have a little relative who is almost four. He is NT (normal) and still needs a little help dressing himself and on the toilet. I don't think it's unusual for the age.

I think it's really impossible to say what your daughter's prognosis is because people on the spectrum develop differently than people who are not, and also differently from each other.

I have Asperger's Syndrome, though in some ways may have been more similar to autism when I was younger.
My parents thought, when I was younger, that I would need to be in a group home as an adult....I never was, and the idea to me is ridiculous and just underscores to me how much my parents didn't know about my actual capabilities. I tolerate being alone better than most, whereas my NT siblings can be very socially needy.

I know of two people diagnosed with classical autism when they were younger, both who didn't acquire functional language until they were 10, and one will probably never be independent, while the other has a master's degree.