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children and families living with autism its not your fault |
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by silly-mummy  (August 2006) (rank 500+) |
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hello, i have a 5 year old son who is in the final stages of his assesment for the autism spectrum disorder and its been a long hard road to go down.
i first noticed my son lived in his own world when he was about 12 months old,
he woulnt look me in the face he seemed to look through me, he hated loud noises and would often scream at the washing machine, hoover, tv etc.. by the time he was 18 months old his behaviour was very difficult he couldnt seem to communicate with me at all the only thing he could do was get really upset scream and bang his face on the floor or walls when he wanted something, i faced alot of very opinionated people who would often say he was just naughty and i needed to be strict with him, the looks and comments i got when i was in town with him could be unbearable to the point where i often thought it was my fault and i was failing him.
it slowly got worse by the time he was 2 1/2 he was very violent towards me as he still couldnt talk his only way of telling me how he felt was either to be very loving or the total opposite and be violent.
it took him to start nursery for anyone to pick up on there being a problem even though i had been asking for help for a long time, at first i got the questions of how did i treat him as a baby, what did i feed him, did i do this or that and again i felt it was my fault, but then my son was refered to speach and language therapy which was fantastic for the first time he could tell me what he wanted, he still found emotions hard to deal with but at least he could ask me for a drink of milk or tell me if he wanted something to eat, the feeling of communication between us felt amazing, after then he was refered to a pediatrition who is fantastic, he has done all of the assesments with my son and built up a good relationship with him, he was the first person in 5 years to say "it isn't your fault" i could have cried with relief, my son now has help at school which has made a big improvement to his self esteem and also gets some home help.
he is nearly 6 now and has changed so much in the last year with all the assesments and there are lots of them and a change of school i thought it might make him worse but he has took it in his stride with the right help and support you can have a fantastic life with an autistic child, one thing nobody told me about untill recently was the picture exchange communication system ( pecs ) where you use pictures to help your child to understand better, it was my sons school carer that told me and iv made some up and he is amazing with them, iv got a 2 year old daughter who thankfully is very understanding to my son and is developing normally but my son can now play with her and talk to her, its great having as near to a normal family life as this but my point to all this is your not alone and its not your fault, but please keep pushing for the help you are intitled to.
i hope this helps someone in the same situation as i was in, i felt very low alot of the time but now life with my children is great. thank you.
