Parents: Did you always "know"?

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I knew from the time he was just a few month old.

- In public, he would stare at everyone and listen for every sound. He wouldn't move a muscle or make a sound, like he was completely stunned by the outside world. Then something would startle him, and he'd jerk and start to cry. This wasn't just once or twice, but very consistent.

- In Mommy & Me classes, he'd be the only baby (from the time he was 6 wks old) listening to the adults every single session. The other kids were rolling around the floor, playing with their toes, doing their own thing. In Toddler gym class, he cried and hid behind the mats. The teacher was great and finally coaxed him out after about 25 sessions, but he was still really freaked out by the whole situation.

- He sat and read books by himself from the time he was like 5 months old, for extended periods of time. He pointed to and said his first number, 8, when he was 8 months old. Among his list of first words were the numbers 0-10.

- He was very, very disinterested in moving around. He was floppy, which I later found out was hypotonia and gross-motor apraxia. He actually could walk at 17 months, but preferred not to(and still avoids it at all costs) and was the absolute clumsiest baby you ever did see. Even now, at 4, he will just keel over for no apparent reason when he is sitting in a chair or on the floor(he just did that today at dinnertime.)

Not to mention all of the sensory stuff that either bothers him to no end or that he is absolutely unaware of. Actually the list goes on and on.

EvilKimEvil, I hope some day that you do mention it to her. I don't know if she will accept it, as some parents do not. She probably will get emotional, but I don't think she would expect you to get emotional too. When I found out, I was very happy to know.

I've been thinking about that question-did you always know? and to be honest, I did not.

I thought it was funny and quirky that as an infant, he would not reach for things. If we set something out to tempt him, just beyond reach, you could almost imagine him shrugging his little shoulders and thinking "nah, can't be bothered". He never crawled, just got up and started walking. Never a good sleeper, day or night. Never went through the stage of separation anxiety, he'd go to any adult.

In pre-school, he would create things, and throw a tantrun if his blocks had to be packed away. He conversed easily with adults, and bossed younger kids. He was extraordinarliy imaginitve, to a degree I knew was different, but put down to his brilliant mind, accepting it a spart of who he was. Only the time he threw a tanty in the fruit shop, because he was pretending to be a banana, and bananas can't walk, really tested my patience!

In kindergarten , his teacher first brought up some of his differences, which she thought suggested giftedness. He was tested and found to be 'just a very bright boy, but not gifted". She was concerned about his tantrums, especially when he could not seem to move on with the class when it was time to change activities if he wasn't finished.

As I sit here writing, little things come back... sensory issues with water, and scratchy jumpers, and things that felt 'icky'. But there were few signs that on there own were huge, they were all subtle, and when I think back, it's like playing a game of connect the dots. However, once he got into second grade, we changed schools, the teachers and kids weren't familiar with his idiosyncracies, and were more prone to point them out. And he also began to 'feel' different. And so began this long journey. But I never considered discussing his lack of social skills with a doctor! And I never heard of Aspergers until he was 17. We had just had him to see a Life Coach for a few months, because he could not look people in the eyes, and he was approaching the end of high school, and we thought it was self esteem issues. This woman taught him how to approach people, and how to look people in the eyes in conversation, among other things. Then we heard about AS. I went to the doctor for a referral to see a n expert. The expert never spoke to me, never asked why I thought there was a problem. He spent 10 minutes with my son, then called me in, and saidhe knew it wasn't AS because J could look him in the eyes during conversation. He felt J was just suffereing from extreme shyness, but was otherwise a normal healty boy. I should have asked for some private time to discuss why I didn't agree, but I certainly couldn't bring myself, at that moment in time, in front of J, to say, "you're wrong, something IS wrong". So we left.

I ended up getting a job in the field of autism to learn more, and am more convinced than ever. But, he doesn't care to pursue the idea, he just gets through everyday, he sets himself some personal challenges to work on his social skills, but with little success. For the most part he's content, but occassionally, loneliness creeps in. Even his litle brother, at 14 has had a girlfriend, and a first kiss. He is such a great person, I hope one day he finds someone who will look past the idiosyncracies, and love him for who he is.

well i can;t remember to omuch from baby days he started walking pretty early 9mo didn't bother crawling. but his speech was very clear, and advanced for his age and he knew his numbers from 1-20 by the time he was 18 months for sure, and could count up to and down from 100 by 20 months.
the other kids would be playing with each other and he'd be drawing numbers on the side walk.
i had a few friends who were in or associated with working with special needs kids one specifically with autistic children who recognized some of the things he did and encouraged me to get him assessed.
didn't notice the limited eye contact untill i was looking for it.
didn't realize the echolalia untill i was looking for it, but he would ask you what he wanted you to ask him and we went along with it because we just thought he wanted to practice his language and show off his knowledge.
noticed his social skills were a little behind, at about 3 yrs, but thought it was because he wasn;t around alot of other kids a lot, and because they couldn't do math with him. or quiz him on clock times or counting by 5's or 10's or 2's.
i really started to notice stuff as his younger sister got older and things that she did, he didn't or was just starting to do and there's a 19 month difference, at first i thought it might just be different personalities and the gender thing sometimes makes a difference.
Just got him assessed in september. by that time he was reading at an 8 year old level and could do 2x2 number addition and subtraction. i have also begun to notice his hand flapping when he gets excited and jumps up and down.
on a side not re some of the other posts, he wasn't crazy about a soother either he would take it for a bit but i mostly gave it to him to buy me time before his "meals" and lost all interest in it by the time he could have crackers.

Yes and no. When E was one year old, he interacted socially at a 3 year old level with an agemate. Everyone thought it was odd that they were both so advanced and able to share and communicate.

At 18 months, the other boy was diagnosed with autism, and eventually shut everyone but my son out of his life. My son had some characteristics (flapping, lining up toys), but I chalked them up to his friend, assuming he was just immitating the other boy.

I don't think I really started suspecting Asperger's until he was past his sixth birthday.

My oldest son's behaviours didn't ring any bells for me because he is just like me so I didn't see anything unusual. I just chalked it up to the gene-pool (little did I know ).
I started mentioning my youngest son and all the things he did that seemed like Autism to my doctor when he was a year old and was told over and over again that these things were just phases and he would outgrow them. I finally got angry and took the whole issue into my own hands and found the answers we needed, no thanks to our family doctor, who still says he doesn't see it in any of us.

Lauri

There were various differences in temperament, interests, gross motor skills and coordination that had me suspect from the very beginning. I had baby sat many a baby in my teens and my little one seemed "different" in some very subtle and some not so subtle ways. His melt downs and anxiety regarding changes in his life were the biggest give aways, not riding a bike and hand flapping, but perfect oral communication, albeit about some peculiar subjects, for his age, like cactus types and plants were unusual.

bump

My little guy is only 5 weeks old, so I can't say that he has AS or autism, but he's done some of the things mentioned in the posts. He kicked off his hospital bracelet, and while he's not old enough to walk or crawl, he's been rolling over since he was 2 weeks old. He sleeps pretty well, and he's pretty easygoing. He really likes this one lamp we just got. He'll stare at it and smile and almost giggle at times, and it seems like he tries to play hide-and-seek with it. It's really cute.

I literally knew from the first day she was born that my daughter was different. With my son, everything seemed fine until he was about 1 1/2.

I would say in the first few weeks I felt like something was different. Many things, how he reacted (or didn't react really) to people. He preferred to watch his mobile going around, than to look at people. He would laugh and giggle at his brightly colored crib bumper, but wasn't interested in peoples faces, like they say in the books.

As he got older, he played with things in ways you wouldn't expect, needed insanely exaggerated motion to be content, (lots of bouncing). He had an obsession with motion and movement. He would hang his head over the side of the stroller to watch the motion. He would throw a fit if we passed a fountain and he couldn't watch it. He lined things up. Sorted EVERYTHING. He was 3 before there was even a clue that it wasn't "normal" (normal for him lol just not the general public)

Often, he would adapt something novel into his routine. For example, bathtime was always fine, but one night he was watching a video and we had to stop it for the bath, so he threw a fit. Every night after that for months he threw a fit, but would proceed to the bath, taking his own things off, as he threw the fit. It just became part of the daily thing.

Walking or driving places, if we went a different path he would get cranky and upset and immediately start crying. He didn't talk much until he was 3 or 4, and even though he could speak, he often wouldn't. He is older now (9) and the last 6 months he has really opened up and will engage others in conversation.

Not to say that any of these traits are wrong, mind you. But as many know, I had to do alot of adaptation for things to allow for his interests and people basically told me i was too young and inexperienced as a parent, that i worried too much.

Miss Pickwickian:

Let me tell you a little story. When my son was 5 he was evaluated by a psychiatrist who said, "You will probably have to have him put away." Imagine the sinking feeling that goes from your throat to the top of your heart when you hear that. Well, that was 14 years ago.

Cut to today. He is a concert quality pianist, and plays about 12 other instruments, takes on stuff for the piano that most kids his age wouldn't touch, and has frustrated a number of professional musicians, because he doesn't want to play the auditions for Julliard.

What he is doing, is studying computer graphics for motion pictures at the New York Film Academy. I made films in the days before computers. I don't understand what he's working on, but he can do in five minutes what it used to take me 10 hours to do. Yes, he is still very quiet, doesn't have that many friends, doesn't look at people when he talks (neither do I) and has regular meltdowns.....which he has learned to control by sheer will power (I take drugs for that).

It is not whether you know that a kid is AS at birth or shortly thereafter, but how you handle it. I think you once mentioned that you were a teenager, so I'm talking here to you and to some of the parents. I have been AS all my life. My parents never "had me put away." I have a lot of trouble "out in the world," but I would not trade places with an NT for anything. I have always feared that if someone could wave a wand and....poof....I was an NT, I'd be the dullest person in the world.

I have no scientific evidence....but I suspect there is a connection between AS and creativity in most fields, be it art or science. It is just a matter of keeping your own sanity in the face of a world that thrives on the average (which I cannot stand). It is the ability to go about your own , possibly quirky direction in life, and, when you have children, if they are AS, to have the wisdom to let them do the same without looking over your shoulder for approval....because you'll never get it. The world, you'll find, never approves of anyone, until they do something great, and then they stand in line to worship at your feet....which is empty too.

To get an a great scientist, you'll have to put up with a few blown up basements.
To get a great artist, you'll have to look past the wallpaper that got ruined because the kid didn't like the pattern.
To get a great writer, you'll have to put up with your kid locking herself or himself in his room and writing....or staring out the window and thinking. That's the way it works. We're all tapping the same source, and sometimes it takes awhile to develop....but it starts at or before birth.

Once long ago, when I was working at a scientific establishment in Menlo Park, California, I had an office across from a young woman named Julia. She never talked to anyone, every so often I'd hear her banging on the walls. I once said hello to her and she jumped about six inches straight up..... and when I said is something wrong? she answered, no, I have something called Aspergers. You wouldn't understand. And when I laughed, she glared at me and said, you find that funny. And I said, yes, because I have it too. I still know her (and Julia is not her real name), but she just retired from NASA, where she was a senior scientist.

Enough said.

Some of us are very ordinary, and we're entitled to that. Some of us, however, are brilliant.

Ya never know.

btdt