Where on the spectrum?

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My daughter was offered more. We refused it. I am exhausted after 40 hours of working and I couldn't imagine her working for 40 hours a week at 2 years old. Therapists will sell it like it is "play," or "fun" but honestly, even though she enjoyed it and did have fun, it was work. I believe that if whatever therapy your kid is doing isn't work, then it probably isn't necessary. If it comes easy, they shouldn't need it.

20 hours was not too much for her. In general, she enjoyed therapy and still remembers 2 of her therapists specifically, and what she did with 2 of the other therapists, although she no longer remembers their names. 20 hours also allowed her to have sufficient break time during the day when she didn't have to work. And a couple of her therapists took a very naturalistic approach, so she was at the mall, at the playground, playing games with her brother, etc.

So the technical difference between autistic disorder and Aspergers according to the DSM IV is this: Autism has three core symptoms (communication deficits, social deficits and repetitive/idiosyncratic behaviors), Aspergers only has two (social deficits and repetitive/idiosyncratic behaviors). If someone had a speech delay - even if they speak perfectly now, then technically, according to the DSM IV, they could not receive a diagnosis of Aspergers, but would instead have Autistic Disorder. This led to people who looked identical in terms of their difficulties, having two different labels (Aspergers and High Functioning Autism), and people with very different problems having the same label (Autistic Disorder, which had to be distinguished as high or low functioning to clear that up).

These distinctions are really just artifacts of history and how people first learned about and understood Aspergers and Autism. In DSM V they're all folded into one umbrella category: Autism Spectrum Disorder. So it takes care of some of the logical issues there, but still requires specificity when distinguishing high from low functioning.

Moviefan was somewhat right, except for the specific example of CP. Autism is a bunch of different things that have a similar set of symptoms. Some people choose to refer to them as "autisms" to emphasize this fact. It's a set of symptoms and when we see enough of them we label it autism. We know that genes usually have something to do with it, and that certain parts of the brain are involved, and a few other physiological things that most people with ASDs have in common, but really science is still mostly clueless about the many different causes of Autisms. It's not the same as a diagnosis like Tuberculosis, where it's a very specific thing and we know exactly what causes it and have a specific and mostly effective treatment that usually works about the same except in rare cases. Autism is much messier than that, which is why no-one can give you a clear prediction at this stage of how your son is going to develop.

I hope that was helpful and not too depressing...good luck!

Yeah, I agree. I thought the same for a 40 hour week for a 2 year old. It would be exhausting. He doesn't exactly like therapy because it is work. I used to be in the room with him during therapy, but when I move I want to know if he would be okay in therapy while I work. I sometimes run quick errands or sit outside the room. He seems to do better when I'm not there- which I guess is pretty normal.

Anyways- I talked to a speech therapist (through Facebook) who lives where we are moving. She works in the same hospital branch as where he is now and I asked how many hours they typically get. She said one kid gets 30 mins 3 times per week. It all depends on the kid.

I think therapy is important but I also think they need time to just be kids. After about 30-40 minutes, my son won't really work with the therapist anymore. He will just kind of zone out and it's hard enough to get him engaged in anything. He will also be going to pre-school and possibly head start or early head start during the school year.

It's not depressing, EmileMulder. I know autism is seen different than it was years ago. I thought there were different types of autism, but now I see that it is all "under the same umbrella" so to speak.