I have a friend who has a two year old autistic son

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I have a friend who has a two year old autistic son. He was just diagnosed. The doctor says he will never talk. I think there is a good chance he still will learn to talk. Is there anything I can do to help to give her any hope?! I have heard and read Albert Einstien did not talk untill he was four!!

Check Wikipedia for the Einstein bit, but I think it's true!

The doctor's being pessimistic, it depends on how Autistic he is. I stay quiet for long periods of time and, while not Autistic but rather Aspie, I do it because I just don't see the need to speak. I can be very quiet at dinner if I don't have anything to say.

Did said doctor happen to live in an archaic red police box?

I didn't talk...but what am I doing now?

Typing. (as a note we had a member who couldn't talk due to her voicebox being ruptured or something)

It’s all communication…. This is my point (apart from said doctor having the uncanny ability of predicting the future).

I agree with you though,the doctor shouldn't just make a statement like that. I mean unless he also had some serious health problems that would kill him BEFORE he decided to talk then I don't see it happening. Being Autistic doesn't mean you don't speak.

the best thing to read for a parent of a newly diagnosed child is anything written by Dr. Temple Grandin. I will promote her books for anybody because I think she has an important message to tell.
Emergence
Thinking in Pictures
Those books are the most important books for a newbie. They don't have instructions or cures or anything. They are just descriptions of Temple's life as an autistic person and how she succeeded in her goals. Very postive messages, though there is a lot of struggle in there.
That all or most autistic people can't talk is a myth. At two, he should be taught sign language and use picture stories/social stories to communicate. It will help him learn to speak, if he is able to in the future. My son wasn't speaking at all at 2 1/2 and was considered age appropriate at 5. He is 7 in a regular 1st grade class.

The doctor sounds like a knob. How can he predict that? 2 years old is still very young!

Agree with the person who recommended Temple Grandin.

It does sound premature.

It sound like a technique that some doctors still use. Like 'you have 2 months to live'. It is not that they know how long you have to live or you can't do anything about it, it is just they think that is the best way to prepare you. I disagree I think the best way is to consider all possibilities.

Lucky they didn't get one of those doctors that don't tell you anything for several yeas. Believe or not that even happened with AIDS in the early 80s even though that was grossly irresponsible.

Get a second, third, four opinions if necessary. I believe you should come a point where you should accept things though. Don't get drawn in by crack scientists who make spurious claims with no evidence such as MMR causing autism, etc. You have to strike a balance between their need and the parents needs. To a certain extent you have to celebrate who they are rather thinking of it always as a problem. You can sort out areas of difficulty by all means but do it at the expense putting them through something that might traumatise them.

The doctor might be right or wrong-unless there is a comorbidity to prevent speech you can't predict- a two year old is still developing neurologically and physically- a lot can happen. My son is pretty severe on the AS, he made up words but no english until he was about 4, then he began to repeat movie dialogue, which he still does. Though he doesn't get into conversations he's verbal and let's us know what he wants-even making word jokes. I am Aspie and I was not delayed as my son but I would go days without talking, I had nothing to say. I was a stranger in a strange world and I didn't understand those other beings out there, I withdrew. That little boy needs to feel comfortable before he speaks and he will develop, or not, on his own time. Throw out the developmental milestones list- it's worthless. Have the worried parents enjoy him for who he is, not what they expect him to be. My son is a goofball (he takes after his father) but he is also a delight. The world would be a sadder place (if that's possible) if he wasn't here. Easier said than done but enjoy the present, not worry about the future. I agree with the Temple Grandin reccomendation she can be inspirational, I've met her a couple of times and she is not what the NT world expects of people on the AS. However, as the name implies, it is a spectrum disorder and as such you can fall anywhere along the continuum. Some folks are severely limited and others you can't tell that they even fall on the spectrum. Either way 2 years is premature for a prognosis, you can get a diagnosis but a prognosis reflects the doctor's bias more than an objective prediction. Early intervention with speech can make a dramatic difference as well.

Jdoll,

I'm not a doctor. I am not good about predicting the future. I don't know your friend, their kid, or their doctor. What I DO know is that it is almost CERTAIN that their doctor is an IDIOT!! !! !!

I doubt he is saying this because the kids larynx or ears are bad, because then you wouldn't bring up the idea of autism. Autism is WIERD! The kid could seem to be a blithering idiot not capable of anything at three, and be an eloquent person considered a genius by 5!(Apparently, that is not far from what happened with Einstein! In fact, Einstein did poorly in french, and it is rumored he failed it. Einstein said that was because he had to take the class, and didn't see the point in it. I CAN RELATE! ALSO, he didn't do well until much later.) That is one of the reasons why autism and MR are different, and one of the reasons why idiot savant is now called autistic savant!

There ARE people here that couldn't speak at 4. There are people that couldn't speak until much later. Apparently, now, you would NEVER know!

As for einstein? There is debate as to whether the mutism was voluntary or not. SOME surmise that his verbal centers just developed slowly because his logical centers were being built up sooner. What ISN'T open to debate is that people don't think he spoke soon, and he wasn't dumb!

BTW People have had more than half their brain removed with no apparent ill effect. SOME actually got SMARTER after it!

So WHY did the doctor say, at two, that the kid would never speak? MOST kids only speak with SIMPLE sentences and 50% intelligible at 2 anyway! BTW Autistic people generally DON'T speak at that time. I spoke before I was 1yo, and some here spoke like at 7yo!! Frankly, doctors should gve HOPE if there is any reason to believe it is valid.

Steve

OTOH, with Kanner's autism, some kids never do learn to speak. That doesn't mean they can't communicate - just ask Amanda Baggs.

My daughter's six, and her vocabulary is still quite limited. She still manages to communicate with us. Not just her needs, as in "Juice, please" or "Chicken, please" or similar trivialities, either. The otehr day, my wife had taken the kids over to her friend's house, to play with her friend's kids, and the friend was having some personal troubles. As she sat on her couch, feeling miserable, Morgana got up beside her, touched her head to the woman's shoulder, and said soothingly, "It's OK. You're OK" (which is what we generally tell her when she's upset about something, but not actually injured).

Try to tell me my daughter "can't empathize" or "can't communicate", just because she won't cooperate with some psychiatrist's prepackaged tests...

Your friend's son may turn out the same way. He may or may not learn to use the complexities of this grand language of ours - but that doesn't mean he can never communicate!

The doctor is being overly pessimistic, and that is about the kindest thing I could say about him. There are people who were nonverbal for a long time who eventually learned to talk. One of my teachers said I would never learn English. (I got a Master's Degree, although I do think it took longer to get there than it should have). I once thought I'd never get a job. (I've been working at my current job for nearly five years. Before that, I worked as a proofreader at my local newspaper and taught English at the junior college level, plus doing freelance writing and editing. All of the jobs I had involved being able to read and use the English language very well.)

Are there things I cannot do? Yes. It is unlikely I'll attempt to drive again any time soon. There are way too many accidents here. It is not my inability, but other people's irresponsibility that turns me off. I will probably not get married. I don't anticipate that anyone my own age shares my passion for Roger Bannister and may not be the over the top, passionate cat and animal lover I am. The man I marry needs not only to like animals, but to have an equal commitment to caring for them. There are a great many irresponsible animal owners out there.

I don't think your friend should listen to that doctor.

I'd like to point out, too, that many, many two-year-old NTs are not especially verbal and not really talking. ESPECIALLY boys.

So, unless this boy has physical problems that would prevent it, he will talk when he's ready and in his own way. Unless he does turn out to be severely autistic, he'll likely eventually learn how to communicate verbally quite well.

It's second opinion time, but your friend just needs to keep loving and encouraging her little man to express himself however he can, and in whatever way he wants. It's waaay to early for pigeonholing.

Good luck to you all!

DD

Does the child try at all to talk?
Have medical issues been ruled out as the reason for not talking?
Is the child suspected of being developmentaly delayed in addition to the autism?

I know a boy who is severely autistic, I met him when he was 11, and he really does not talk "much" however he does say "hi" sometimes, he has a few sentences he repeats verbatum, and he says things to try and communicate basic needs, like "im hungry". He also tells his mom that he loves her.

I think that two is way way way too young to make a blanket statement like that. Have you ever heard of a woman named Donna Williams? She could not even understand a few sentences said together when she was 9. As an adult, she has written BOOKS!

Wasn't your first language German?

I can attest to the fact that German grammer is often MUCH harder than english, and never easier! You may have to split verbs, remember them, and get the order right. If you could speak german decently, English should have been EASY! The pronunciation, and vocabulary, may be different, but sentence structure and complexity is FAR easier. What doctor could say you couldn't learn english?

Most doctors are idiots anyway. They probably cheat on exams, don't care about continuing education, etc... Just my observation after dealing with about 2 dozen personally, and seeing how several hundred reacted, etc... Frankly I'm surprised I am still alive, after an operation on my aorta. Still, he CHEATED(His notes indicated he used stuff on my aorta that is not to be used around the heart or to repair blood vessels like the Aorta).

You shouldn't even trust CAR mechanics, why give a doctor any more trust.

Steve