11 month old just diagnosed ASD

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Hello,

My 11 month old was just diagnosed with ASD. I'm trying to navigate through all the information on different treatments ect. I'm feeling very overwhelmed. I was told today that he needs 40 hrs a week in intensive treatment. This just feels wrong to me. He is barley up that many hours - he is still just a baby. Has anyone out there had a diagnosis this early? I would really like to connect with you and learn about your experiences. PM me! Thanks!! ! I am very open to all and any comments.

Did they diagnose your son with classic autism??

It is too early to tell for most types of autism other than severe classic autism. But you are the mom and you know your child better than the doc does, so if you feel that is waaaaay too intensive then just say so or find another doctor.

What made the doctor think he has autism at that age??? Classic autism tends to be more obvious at 2-3 years old sometimes as late as 4. but your son is not even a year old yet!
what symptoms is he showing that is so developmentally dire to require him to take a full time job as a patient.

Honestly, the 40 hours a week of intense therapy has me concerned that may be some kind of scam....you need a second opinion.

according to my mom, the only symptom I had at that age was colic...I was a very fussy baby

Jojo

Yeah, it is next to impossible to properly diagnose a baby with an asd. Which asd was he diagnosed with? Aspergers? Classic autism? For one, Aspergers REQUIRES for a diagnosis that there is no delay in language. How can the psych know there is no delay in language if the baby is too young to talk? Classic autism REQUIRES a delay in language or some other form of social communication. Again, if the baby has not passed the age for developmental norms, how is this supposed to be diagnosed? Autism isn't usually diagnosed until the age of 2 at the earliest, and more often even later than that. Aspergers is often diagnosed even later. The ADOS, to the best of my knowledge, isn't even designed for children below a certain age--11 months would definitely be too young.

My suggestion: wait until your child begins passing the age that these important milestones are supposed to be met. Then go see a psychologist who knows what he or she is doing, and would already know that an 11 month old cannot be properly diagnosed with an ASD.

The following article was written and reviewed by MDs http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/ ... -14-months

It states that autism can be detected only as early as 14 months, and even that is rare. It is usually diagnosed after the age of 3. Many even say 14 months is stretching it, and no earlier than 18 months.

If he has classic autism take all the therapy you can get and be happy for it. My daughter was still non verbal at age 3 and diagnosed as severe. Thankfully she had intensive therapy. She is now 6 and speaks, goes to school and is potty trained (for the most part)....no she is not a typical child but I know that she would not be doing as well if we did not get this intensive early intervention. I sometimes wonder how she would be doing if we started even earlier. If you son is severe enough to get a diagnosis this young I would definitely take the therapy. Many places offer no therapy and some of these kids dont get anywhere, they remain severe, or they do not progress as fast or as well as they would have if therapy was started earlier. I am fighting for this in this county (France) they have no early intervention and my kids are the only "high functioning" kids at the autism center. Fortunately we lived in California when my kids were diagnosed.
Try the therapy and if your son is too tired or its too much for him they will tailor it to his needs. If you feel they are pushing too much and being counter productive than you should step in but dont refuse before it even starts.

@littlelily613 and jojobean you are WRONG WRONG WRONG....they can make a diagnosis if a child is severe as early as 9 months old now. They are actually making progress and we should be happy that they are. The old "wait it out theory" needs to be done away with. Please do not tell people these kinds of things, you two are not a doctor, are you? If the doc says the child has autism than please dont tell someone that their doctor is wrong.

The problem here is that there is mainly people with Asperger's here and its true that Asperger's should not be diagnosed too soon but Classic autism is a different playing field.

This is really long but it may shine some light on the progress they are making in autism diagnosis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFr7p8PAwlU&feature=related[/youtube]


I will add that this is the US and there are some other countries who are using and utilizing the earlier diagnostic criteria. Also in the video I dont agree with everything, like the stepping lightly about diagnosis. I dont see the reason for that other than the parent might be upset. It can only be positive for the child to be diagnosed as early as possible. I read another article that said it would be "devastating" to diagnose too soon....devastating to who??? the government who may have to pay for therapy maybe?

Thank you Claudia....a voice of reason. I mean even if they are wrong what child would not benefit from therapy? Its not as if they are giving the child medication or anything like that. If the child gets older and it turns out the diagnosis was wrong....which I highly doubt...what was the harm? Diagnosis can be changed! I dont know why anyone would want to kick progress in Autism diagnosis and therapy.

If you look on youtube you will find lots of videos of parents who fought for their kids to be diagnosed younger. One woman KNEW her son had autism and she finally got him diagnosed at 14 months. If you see the signs than they are there, if a doctor agrees with you thats even stronger. Im sorry Im being such a pain about this but it makes me nuts to see people actually advocating the "lets wait and see" idea. In the video I posted, my daughter fit the diagnostic criteria before she was one year old. She did not respond to her name, she only laughed and smiled at toys. Sometimes she carried something like a piece of dust or a feather between her first finger and thumb for HOURS. When she was a bit over one year old she used our hand to get what she wanted....used us as a tool as the video says. She never waved bye bye....until she was 4 and we taught her, then she waved backwards up until a few months ago...she still does it and we will turn her hand around, I think its because when other people wave she sees the palm of their hand so she is mirroring that. I just dont understand anyone not agreeing with earlier diagnosis. There are kids who start to develop normally and then regress and you can not diagnose them early as they seem typical. However the ones like my daughter, you could diagnose much earlier as she had all the signs and symptoms even before 6 months.

It wasn't obvious with my kid till he was two or so, he wasn't developing language and had some stimming (spinning stuff, staring at water.)

Hello and thank you all for your comments. I am here to get all different opinions and that is what I got!

Let me first say that my son was assessed by a team of doctors that agreed that he was delayed socially and with his motor skills. He is one week away from his one year birthday and there is still many milestones that he should have that he doesn't. In Canada we get free funding for treatment so I believe the doctors were comfortable giving him the formal diagnosis in order for him to be able to access this treatment. If later he grows up and has no signs of asd then so be it. We will never know if it was due to early intervention or because he was actually born NT. There is no harm in getting him help now, only harm in waiting if he is asd.

It was one particular autism clinic that suggested the 40 hours, not his docs. It was quite clear that they were recommending the same cookie cutter approach that they would offer a 3 or 4 year old. We are not going to do more than 10 hrs a week of formal therapy to start and may do less if it is too much for him. Although I am a believer in early intervention, I also want him to be just a kid too. I don't think asd is the end of the world and I am in some ways excited to see what he will become. I can already tell that he is a very analytical little dude.

As a mother I will follow my instincts as you have suggested. My husband and I are educated, intelligent people and will do the best for our son. We both knew he was different from around three months. He never smiled or made eye contact with us. He doesn't respond to his name and seems more interested in toys then people. He was also very slow to crawl. Just mastering this skill now along with several other motor skills that he can't
do. I have already read about a dozen or so books and have done hours of research, he is already showing improvement with some of the techniques we have tried on our own. I am a stay at home mom now and will be able to be there with him on this journey together.

He was diagnosed with just autism, but the docs and us agree that he is too young to know how severe or what type of autism he will have in the future. We are hopeful that he will be just fine.

ryio, thanks for giving us more information about your situation.

its not unheard of to have the diagnosis given to enable a child access to treatment. for some kids, not having the diagnosis means they get no therapy, even if they do need it. the medical diagnosis can be a powerful thing, and it sounds like its going to get your son the help he needs.

do remember that early intensive therapy does not cure asd. if your son has asd, he has asd, and no matter how early or intensive the treatment, he will still have asd. asd is diagnosed by behavioral traits, but it encompasses more than just that. it also includes how one perceives and interprets the world, and therapy isnt going to get rid of those apsects. so in the future, if he has no signs of asd, then he didnt have asd and had another developmental delay (kids can be socially or physically delayed without any asd involvement, and even be misdiagnosed asd because of those delays).

my youngest has classic autism and was much like you describe your son. didnt smile as a baby, his eye contact when he made it was a disconcerting intensive stare, didnt respond to his name, not interested in playing with people, little physically delayed. as he grew, he was not only slow to talk, but refused to talk, telling us no when asked to say words, up until he was 3. at 5, he is happy, smiles a ton, laughs a lot, talks up a storm altho with the idiosyncrasies that usually come with autism, and is mainstreamed at school. hes only had a year of speech and 9 months of occupational therapy during this past year. i cant say that early intervention wouldnt have done good things for him, but i can say that he has been fine without it. my son is high functioning however, so the outcome may have been different if he had really needed more services. its really hard for any of us to say how much is therapy and how much is just natural development.

i would hazard to say that with the support your son has, and the effort his parents are going to to learn about how to help him, that asd or not, he will be just fine.