RE: Kids w/ Classic Autism, PDD-NOS & Speech Delays

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Yeah real pleased. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in his mainstream class and see what he does and how he gets on. The only people that get to see that are the aides.

I hear occasional brief reports just on specific things. E.g. my wife relayed that the aide said he was sitting at a chair and got really excited and jumped up, knocked his chair over and then when he went to sit back down tried to sit on an invisible chair. I can totally picture him doing that as he does similar things at home

But just the thought of him enjoying being in the class and being excited at something going on in there is really cool!

In addition to the autism, my son also has SEVERE dyspraxia and verbal apraxia, so motor planning these (monkey bars) has been hard for him. He now sits on Dad's shoulders and is physically prompted to put one hand in front of the other to move along the bars. He is much better now, and uses most other park equipment. We are trying to teach him to play cricket (batting is great for hand-eye coordination, especially), but his dyspraxia and difficulty with timing is so bad that this has been an epic fail so far. So, finally, we hung a ball from the ceiling using a thick string, gave him a bat, and make him thwack the ball several times a day. He hates this activity, but it helps with the overall timing / coordination etc. He is completely unable to bowl overarm, and won't release the ball at all. Underarm is just as hard, and he always misses throwing at the wickets. But neither hubby nor I are giving up and 30 mins of cricket is really good physical practice for him. You can say that we play good old test cricket daily at home -- only takes us about 30 minutes to play an over ! !!

We also have steps to teaching soccer to improve foot-eye coordination. These are (a) kick a stationary ball walking up, (b) kick a stationary ball running up to it, (c) kick a moving ball after walking up to it, and finally (d) kick a moving ball after running up to it. He can do (a) and (c) but (b) is still really hard, so we are not even attempting (d). But he will get there. Some day.



No, he cannot comprehend stories although he follows directions that he has heard about a million times before. His receptive language is really very severely delayed. He does not comprehend even words pertaining to his reinforcers, if not accompanied by a visual or gestural cue. It is getting better but nowhere close to being age appropriate. He also hated books for this reason because the receptive language challenge overwhelms him and he shut down in protest. But, again, getting much better as he can now attend for a few minutes, and now looks at simple baby books fleetingly (especially when he thinks that I am not looking) !




He can point now, but needs a gentle reminder / verbal prompt sometimes. There are spontaneous whole hand pointing (damn dyspraxia !) but he wll at least attempt to isolate his index when I tell him "one finger pointing". It is quite sweet to watch him comply - 2 years ago, I would never have believed that he would ever point !



Nope, not for him, as he has ZERO interest in other kids, even the ones who approach him at parks etc, asking him to play with them ! He seems to attract a lot of little Mums on the playground, especially, 5-7 year old girls who follow him around, stating "you are so cute" and who try to engage him by trying to play tag with him, offering him their dolls, etc ! But, no matter how cute and sweet and persuasive the little Mum is, he usually tends to ignore her, and she (whichever little girl it is attempting to connect with him) eventually gives up.

Furthermore, the only placement he was offered by the school district was in a severe, self-contained classroom, all with kids who have significant social delays and almost no language. I dont think any of those little boys utter a word and if he cannot socialize with chatty, friendly little girls who WANT to be around him, good luck with learning to socialize with similarly anti social, rough, little boys who aren't above hitting anyone else who dares to invade their space !

Mainstreaming (even part time) was not an option the district offered him, because supposedly (per the savants administering the program) he would learn more from being a class with a higher adult to child ratio, never mind that he will never have typical peers to motivate him and for him to learn from.

It is an uphill battle. Plus, he really is severely socially delayed, and does not even engage with his NT sister, although we are trying that now, with the help of the Son Rise / Intensive Interaction social curriculum. Mainly, my son's challenges are severe cognitive delays, whole body dyspraxia and verbal apraxia. I almost believe that he may have some level of ID, but he WILL progress, just not fast enough for my taste. But then, it isn't about me and I am really proud about how far he has come so far. And there is no rush. We have large life insurance policies with him as the beneficiary, so he probably won't have to work a day in his life. This frees up his days to learn, and eases up the stress / worry on us about how he would support himself long after we are gone.



Yes, he is starting to finally understand that the stuff coming out of our mouths actually means something and that we are not vocal stimming like he is when *we* "make noises". Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.

Hi Hismom,

The fundamental principle that will help your son is understanding that physical activity will be very helpful for his long term nuerocognitive development. With this in mind please persevere with physical activity.

If he enjoys a physical activity but has problems doing it properly then gently encourage him using baby steps. Don't worry if he is taking a long time. My daughter has been doing swimming now for two years and she still dog paddles but we continue to work on other swim techniques regardless mainly because she enjoys it.

If your son finds a physical activity too hard and does not enjoy it then just switch and try a different physical activity that he does enjoy. Go back to the previous one later.

With reading the principle is go to the simplest books and get his interest. If he is 6 years old and he is frustrated listening to 6 yr old books then go back to books for toddlers with nice illustrations. Don't get frustrated, just keep trying.

On the issue of playfriends, my daughter continues to engage kids in the classroom or playground non-verbally and she's now 9. Despite this she is happy to play alongside other kids if not directly with them. For your son please let him play alongside NT kids if he is happy, even if he ignores them now he may not in future.

Finally with school's, this is a hard decision. My view is that children learn equally from peers as much as adults. For this reason I put my daughter in a mainstream school. He improvement has been great although she still has a long way to go.

Even with a psych diagnosis of dyspraxia and ID, this should not let you stop from preparing him as if he is only developmentally delayed. Many, many kids come out of different childhood diagnosis to improve as adolescents. Never give up. After all, you have nothing to lose.

Cricket!! now I have to ask if you don't mind, what part of the commonwealth do you and/or your husband originate? Most North Americans have never heard of cricket.

Yeah, that is pretty much our attitude, too. We have NOTHING to lose, NOTHING. The inheritance from our life insurance policies will more than cover his living expenses for the rest of his life, which is a HUGE worry off our shoulder. We plan to use an institutional trustee so that there is independent auditing and verification / tabs on how his money is used / spent by the trustee. Knowing that he will never be homeless and hungry is much valuable peace of mind, even though the monthly premiums are costing us our shirts.

There are a lot of positive stories out there of kids who were very low functioning, sometimes even into their teens, and then suddenly underwent miraculous transformations. I do not expect miracles, but I do hope that he will be much higher functioning that he is currently. It is mostly his whole body dyspraxia, and the oral-motor & verbal apraxia that are stumbling blocks to his development. If he had "only" been autistic or had "only" had language impairments, his progress would probably have been a lot faster. Physical activities - especially sports - and fine motor skills (which impact self help skills) are hard for him only because of the dyspraxia, not the autism.

But baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.



REALLY ? Are you sure about that ?

All I will say is that the team from my country of origin is playing in the opposite pool from you Baggy Greens in the World Cup next year. Really impatient for Feb 2015 to come around, the last few months are always the hardest to wait out !

Do / did you play cricket yourself ? I was a leg spinner when I was a kid, pity since I always wanted to be a fast bowler. But I never could maintain line and length to pull off that action, so I contended myself with delivering the most devilish googlies ever - even if I do say so myself ! !

My daughter has Dyspraxia and OCD and physical activity appears to have had a very important impact on her abilities in her school work. She is in higher English and maths classes, but when she was 6 she couldn't read, she couldn't stand on one leg for more than one second, and was well below her peers in all academic aspects.
We got her to do swimming and ballet, and got a trampoline, and I spent a lot of time with her at playgrounds encouraging her. We also got her to go to OT and work on specific things and learnt from observing that as to what to do. She has been doing ballet for 6 years now, several times a week. I think it really helps.

I never played formal cricket just school yard which I did enjoy. If someone had said 'you should play cricket' I would have though. When I first went to school, fairly early on the principle turned up to the classes, he didn't talk about anything to do with school as I recollect but instead gave us a speech about something called 'Rugby'. At that age I didn't know what sport was let alone Rugby as my parents weren't into sport, but it was such a rousing speech and it sounded such a magnificent thing to be doing that when he asked which boys wanted to play Rugby we all put our hands up, so as a result I played that through primary school

Yes life insurance is a sensible idea. When your other children get older do you think you will have a discussion about whether they can let your son stay in their future home/family? In my case I already know nobody on my wife's side or my side of the family would lift a finger to help



Yes I am sorry about the associated factors, I think Nostromo's son is in a similar situation. You both sound in a positive frame of mind to tackle each issue one at a time. I also try and maintain a positive outlook but I cant pretend it's easy.



Here in Australia it's football (AFL) in the winter and cricket/tennis in the summer. Over the "ditch" in New Zealand they play the other type of football called rugby...

Yes I was a medium/fast bowler (leg cutter) and a lower order slogger. As a batsman I never understood what the point was to occupy the crease without trying to connect the bowler's delivery to somewhere over the fielder's heads

I'm a North American (through and through), and I've actually seen cricket being played in parks in my area (Queens, NYC).

Nostromo, please play cricket ! !!



I hope that my daughter will take my son in, but who knows how her husband will react to the burden of having to care for a BIL ? I am hoping that his inheritance will sweeten the deal for any unwilling future son-in-law. At the very least, I hope that my daughter will live close by and frequently check in on her brother to make sure that he is OK and will be a strong advocate for him long after we are gone. They are not very close now - mainly because he tends to ignore her completely - but I hope that they will have a strong bond as adults. We don't have anyone else who can look out for him, either, and I try hard not to worry about the future. Furthermore, our kids are so young that medicine may crack the puzzle during our lifetimes and help will be available to our nonverbal kids, so just keeping the faith and staying in the present, so to speak.




Goodness, just going by your posts here, I would NEVER NEVER NEVER have guessed that you were one of those aggressive types ! !! Did you play a lot of limited over matches ? Ever been a night watchman ?

You sound totally chilled and laid back that it is quite a surprise to learn that you are a lower order slogger ! ! I like the aggressive ones at the crease - easy wicket pickings ! !! The cautious, defensive types were the ones that drove me crazy -- you know the types that went in to bat with the WHOLE AND SOLE INTENTION of occupying the crease to force a draw ?! UGH, they drove me crazy and sometimes I would try other "tactics" such as Mankading them when I had had enough of them but they showed no signs of ever leaving ! Loved their spot at the crease a tad too much, some of them did. Of course, my bowling style and tactics meant that I was never as flashy as my fast bowling teammates, but I made up for my lack of "flashiness" by being a stingy curmudgeon who appreciated the intrinsic value of maidens (I aimed for them almost much as I aimed for wickets).

This is really tricky. My wife's mother and my mother are far too old now to help out anymore and my daughter has no siblings. Her brief meetings with cousins has not been very fruitful as self-centredness seems to be a genetic trait on both sides of my daughter's family.

Yes it's too early to tell how your daughter and son's relationship will develop. Of course a little social engineering might push things in the right way. It would be great if your son and daughter develop similar interests so as they spend more time together.




I used to play club cricket some 20 yrs ago. Yes it was serious on occasions and I was aggressive and competitive on the playing field (but that's not how I am outside of sport). All of our matches were limited overs. Have you played 3 day or 5 day matches??



Ok this is quite disorientating for me so I will make an assumption you were an enthusiastic member of a women's cricket team? it's really cool, women's cricket in Australia is starting to emerge and we have state clubs. But to be honest most mainstream fans don't take women's cricket too seriously (I've heard some unfair comparisons on TV comparing female cricketers with lingerie footballers). Do you follow the IPL or the world cup?

Interesting, I've been to the west coast of the US on three occasions now and nobody has even heard of cricket. I guess pockets of the east coast of the US (I.e. Queens NYC) is a little more anglophile leaning culturally so perhaps that explains the interest.

Ever considered having or adopting another child ?




Yes. Our "clubs" were merely informal teams, mostly made up of kids from the same suburbs / neighbourhoods. We came up with our own rules, and we played longgggg matches - some stretching even for several days.



Why would it be disorienting for you ?! And, no, I am not talking about a women's team. Our teams were mixed gender, because so few girls (barring tomboys like me) played cricket, that we had no choice but to just play with the boys. Things have since changed, and enough girls are now playing that we could afford to form women-only teams. BUT, when I was a kid, the few girls who played cricket played with the boys.

And, for the record, I would personally wring the neck of anyone who dared to refer to a woman playing cricket as a lingerie footballer. Morons.

It's weird you should ask. We actually started the process to adopt, applied for interviews before my wife got pregnant and we had our daughter. We discussed and thought adopting for the purpose of giving our biological daughter a play friend was unethical.



cool...yeah as kids we used to play street cricket with local urchins





Meeting women or girls who play cricket is so rare in Australia, infact I have never (despite the presence of women's cricket clubs) actually met a girl who played or liked cricket, my wife hates it...



LOL! Australian male sports commentators are only slightly more evolved than cave dwelling neanderthals.

Not to argue, but if you look at it as doing something for your daughter, it does seem unethical. But if you look at it as giving a child a good home and the chance of a good life, it doesn't seem quite so unethical.




I think you misunderstand, I am not talking of "street cricket" and we weren't "urchins". We had organized teams - usually all belonging to the same neighbourhood - playing with teams from different neighbourhoods. And, unlike street cricket, we (the teams) negotiated the rules of the game beforehand and stuck to them. We also had ADULTS umpiring matches and trophies to be won - the whole 9 yards. Much like "junior league" matches here.



Maybe more girls / women would play if the misogynistic Neanderthals were to be blighted into oblivion or evolved into decent humans ? Just a thought ! And it is not just in Australia, most people don't seem to take women playing cricket seriously when they should. I took just as many wickets in many matches as my male team members, so what gives ?

My wife and I were quite open to adopting earlier on but now that we have a biological kid I think it would be unfair plus my wife and I are exhausted just look after one. But I can see your point.


Oops sorry, it's still cool that people in the US organise cricket like this...really opened my eyes to our cultural similarities...


It's true, there are plenty of female sportswomen who could easily challenge their male counterparts.

Actually, come to think of it, it (cricket's popularity in NYC) is probably due to the West Indian population there.