New Member: MishLuvsHer2Boys

Post Reply New Topic

Just thought I'd write quickly to introduce myself.

My name is Mish (Michelle), I'm an almost 31 yr old Stay At Home Mom to 2 handsome and wonderful little men. I live with their father and have for over 4 yrs. We're from Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have recently done some searching into my life and have come up with the fact that I am by everything I've read and based on my life an Aspie (self-dx'd) unfortunately where I live it's hard to get an official dx and really not sure if it'd really benefit or change anything.

Dylan is currently 3 1/2 yrs old (born Feb. 7th, 2001) and will be 4 soon. He was diagnosed in July 2003 on the Autism Spectrum with PDD-NOS and was re-evaluated in June 2004, PDD-NOS was dropped and he was re-diagnosed with Autistic Disorder (claimed to be high functioning). He also has a diagnosis of oral and verbal apraxia as well as sensory processing disorder. They also suspect that he has hyperlexia.

Brendon is turning 17 months old (born May 21st, 2003) and I believe him to be NT but am not fully certain. He is very advanced for his age, he was evaluated above age level for development at 12 1/2 months in June 2003.

Look forward to meeting others especially parents of autistic/asperger children as well as other autistic/aspie adults too.

Let me congratulate you for your courage. If we have had a perception of ourselves as NTs for some time, the discovery of being Aspergian can be a somewhat difficult thing psychologically to accept. I was diagnosed myself in 1992, (12 years ago) and I still don't think I've completely integrated it yet.

However, with that said, self-diagnosis is at times not entirely free of doubt, although given how vague the DSM-IV's criteria are in particular, it may actually be less doubtful than a professional assessment if you have been living with the conditions for some time. It is true that therapists who specialise in Asperger's are sadly very rare. While I am fortunate enough to be in the same country as Tony Attwood, one of the primary authors on Asperger's, Australia is a large country and he is still a considerable distance away from where I live.



In terms of a potential NT, the milestones to watch would be the physical rather than verbal/intellectual. Autists/people with Asperger's might learn to talk earlier, but physical mobility/walking and other such things will likely be delayed. In my own case, I skipped the "Dad/Mum" phase and was talking fluently at around 18 months, but did not learn to walk until I was nearly 3, which is obviously very late.

Hi Michelle,

Your two sons really are a couple of adorable little guys. I'm glad that you've been able to recognize that your older child is on the autistic spectrum while he's still so young. He will almost certainly be able to grow up with a greater sense of self-understanding than I had in my youth. It's also good that you're monitoring your younger son in case he might have Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism, as well.

Your situation is one that I might find myself in one day, although I don't anticipate having any children very soon. I just started reading the forums on this site a couple of days ago, so I don't know whether or not they are frequented by parents as much as they are by people with Asperger's Syndrome describing their own experiences. I hope you can find some people in a situation similar to yours to discuss things with, though. At any rate, welcome to the Wrong Planet.

petrus4,

I think what has helped me a lot is mainly having gone through the process of diagnosis and such with Dylan, he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum at 29 months (July 8th 2003) as PDD-NOS, I knew that was not the right diagnosis, it has now been overturned and he has been placed under Autistic Disorder based on his whole development from birth on. He was showing signs from birth on but we didn't know much about autism and we thought he was just taking his time on most milestones and maybe had a speech disorder. They say he's high functioning, he has oral and verbal apraxia and they think he has hyperlexia especially where he has an obsession with numbers and letters and the preschool has noticed him reading some words from books. With having gone through this since we first found out he had red flags for Autism on March 14th 2003, I've had a long while to research and better understand Dylan and myself. Of course, we found out in June 2004, that Dylan wasn't the only child on my side of the family that was on the autism spectrum, there were 3 other older boys as well (paternal side of the family).

Thankfully with Brendon, he's been doing so many of the milestones much earlier than I ever thought an infant could do. He was rolling both ways well before 1 1/2 months old, he was crawling near the end of 4th month, by 6th month, he was sitting up on his own and learning to babble and say a couple of words. By 7 months he was pulling up to his knees, by 7 1/2 months he was up to standing and a week later was starting to cruise, by 8 months, he was cruising with no problem and starting to try to let go to stand by himself by 8 1/2 months and at 9 1/2 months, he took his first solo steps. At 11 months, he discovered climbing upstairs much to my dismay, though I am very proud of him and by 13 months he had figured a way to get back down the stairs as well and has become very proficient now at almost 17 months of handling the stairs, he also has about 50 or so words (verbally expressed even though not all are used consistantly), his fine motor skills are very very high for his age.

My oldest son didn't crawl till almost 9 months, didn't sit on his own till 9 months, he was past 10 months before starting to pull himself up to standing and from there didn't cruise till after 12 months, didn't stand on his own till 15 months and didn't walk on own till 16 months. He did babble a lot but mainly using mama, dada, baba and nana, none of which meant anything in particular which had concerned me at the time. He was a very quiet, calm baby, one that was really independant and such, thought it was odd that he really didn't like much to play with besides the vaccum cleaner and watching Shrek over and over and would get really upset if he couldn't watch it at 10 months old. Looking back he did have the spinning thing of the wheels and fascination with parts back then. His first real word wasn't till 34 months which was 'wow', we are slowly improving over time after using sign language and PECS. I am very grateful that we did get a diagnosis with him early.

It's nice to meet you too Jay, I honestly am not sure how many other parents are finding themselves as well on the autism spectrum as well as their child. I've found very few so far.

I love my boys, even though some days I wish I could be alone at times as they can be very overwhelming to me, partly due to their screaming and such is hard on my ears and they are full of energy. Dylan and I tend to have different issues from each other though which sometimes clash and it makes things harder than I suspect for some other parents. My common-law partner (well we're not working out so well especially now) likes to play with the boys but he doesn't understand Dylan and really doesn't understand me either. I dread going back to work if I was to leave in some ways because I always had a hard time holding a job and due to my advanced arthritis in my knees, it makes it hard being a parent and not being able to do physically the things I'd like to do with them.

But I wouldn't trade being a parent for the world, be it if I was NT or not.
I think if it wasn't for them sometimes I would have let my depression just take over and been alone. Maybe someday I'll find someone that better understands me if I want, it's just meeting someone that understands me is the hardest part.

Welcome, Mish. For 41 years I believed I was NT... just "smarter" than everyone else. Quite the shock to learn about AS back in May. But quite the relief, as well.

It has also helped me to understand why my highly gifted (Aspie) son is different from my highly gifted (NT) daughter, after all these years of not knowing there was a difference. I thought my son was just weird. Oh boy, if I was like him as a child, no wonder I had no NT friends!

Anyway, I am Cindy, age 41, self-diagnosed Aspie, highly gifted, mom of 5.
My oldest daughter is 21, NT, highly gifted, graduated from college, has her own apartment, is working full time, and has just begun applying to law schools.
My oldest son is 19, dropped out of college after one semester (he was "bored"), lives in the basement, works nights, sleeps days, pays his bills, and.. that's about all!
My 13yo daughter has mild Williams Syndrome, which includes some learning disability as well as ADD.
My 10yo son is also highly gifted, academically two grade levels ahead of his peers, and quite Aspie.
Last but not least, our 7yo son, NT, avid soccer player for the past three years -- awesome on defense!

Sounds to me like you're doing a great job with your boys.

Just thought I'd pull this back up,
because you have the oldest of
the hello threads with a poster
that I recognize as still active.

Yeah, I'm bored.

LOL Yeah, 3 years today.

Damn! I didn't even notice THAT!

Crazy.

Now if you would have said. "Wanna cyber?" I'd have to hunt you down and put an ice cube down the back of your shirt. *laughs*

Yes my intro back when I was self-diagnosed and by my 1st anniversary on here, had my official one, not bad.

Didn't even know you went there.

Haha. Would I really want to go there?

Probably not.
But, I have fun.
Good site for the silly
of mind.