"So I just need to accept I have an autistic son" :(

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My wife recently had a kind of emotional outburst where she revealed she has been holding out hope our son would suddenly "get over" autism or suddenly start talking, but she said sadly maybe she just needs to accept and what people are saying about him that he is ret*d. I can tell this is hitting her hard, I think she has been in a kind of denial or something. She has never dealt with this personally like I have though, and her friends and family and the whole society we live in is kind of against mental disabilities.

I have told her many times I was non-verbal too at his age mostly, she thought I meant I suddenly was as I am now but I told her you're seeing me decades after a slow process. This doesn't make her feel any better.

I've even tried to show her aside from being non-verbal he is a lot more functional and has less meltdowns than some children with autism. This might sound bad but I don't intend it that way, I am just trying to get her to focus on the good and not what she sees as the bad.

I just don't know what to say to her to make her feel better.

Also she admitted she was kind of against PECs and wasn't making much of an effort because she felt he doesn't need it since he would start talking.

Autistic does not equal intellectually disabled, which is what most people mean when they say "ret*d".
Your son may or may not have an intellectual disability.
In any case, the "r" word has come to be regarded as a slur and thus should not be used to describe anyone.

She needs to get over herself and start thinking about what's best for her child. And if PECS is it, for instance, then PECS it should be. If she is having this much trouble, perhaps she should see a professional to help her process.

It's a very real possibility that he will always be non-verbal. There's nothing wrong with hoping that he becomes verbal, but you and your wife should teach him PECS and/or other AAC so he at least has some means of communication.

Any kind of communication spurs on the development of all communication. So all positive communication is good.

If he likes music; Sing-along Songbooks are joyful multi-sensory ways to building the eye to mouth pathways supporting language (http://www.4mylearn.org/Bookshelf/BooksSong.html ). This develops reading, verbal, and interaction skills. When put on a large screen tv, you can position yourself between him and the screen, so your face is near his. Start by singing to him, and encourage him to make up hand and body gestures (like rolling along, put your right foot in, shake all about) to increase imitation and joint attention skills. The song Bingo develops very important response inhibition skills. If he enjoys it do it every day. He is likely to make noises to the music which evolves into words. At the minimum it increases gesture communication. These songs are very well enunciated to build language and reading.

Maybe if you tell her how much she will be missing of her child's growth, and how much she will regret it, if she doesn't pay attention, NOW.

Other than that, the only thing I can think-of to do, sounds like you're already doing it----and that is, focusing on the POSITIVE (what he CAN do, instead of what he can't). Unfortunately, it's like you said, society (her / her family) still has such a negative opinion of people who are not "normal"----like, it's THEIR fault----or, somehow it reflects on the type of person THEY are. Also, it's the fear of the unknown.

I'm not sure what that sentence means.....

Does it mean that she thinks if she uses the PECs, your son will never talk; or, does it mean that eventually he'll talk, so why waste time, learning a different way to communicate?

Unpopular answer time. I went through that too. It is hard to have a kid that you believe is intelligent and yet have everyone else saying he's not because he doesn't talk. The sting never goes away, from my experience anyhow. Telling her to "get over herself" or other things implying that her feelings are wrong and she is a bad person, will almost certainly not help. I'm going to tell you about my experience. I don't know if any of it will apply to your wife but here goes…

What has really helped me is seeing non-verbal autistic adults who still have lives. I met a woman when my eldest was about 8 years old, she has a non-verbal autistic adult son who is a lot like my son. But unlike many of the things that I'd previously thought of such adults, he can go places still, they ride the bus, go for walks, go to the store, etc.. Seeing her helped me a lot because then I had something to compare to that was actually realistic and not 100% depressing.

Another thing would maybe be to stop holding out hope that he'll learn to talk. You say you've been telling her about yourself not talking, and I would say maybe you should stop. The reason you might want to stop is that you are not your son and statistically he probably won't talk once he gets to a certain age non-verbal. I wish I had accepted that my son would always be non-verbal sooner than I did. I think it will help her if she can accept that and stop hoping he'll speak. I found that accepting that my son will never speak was very hard but in the end, allowed me to be happier. One thing that made me hold onto this delusion for so long was all the people who told me stories of kids who learned to talk when they were [insert an age older than my child]- turns out, that's not very helpful. When I was still hoping he would learn to speak, every speech therapy session where he didn't even imitate a sound was a GIANT FAILURE. It was yet another reminder of how hopeless this situation was. As soon as I accepted that he will NEVER SPEAK, when he didn't speak, it wasn't a failure- it was just reality. It also helps with coming to terms with the use of PECS.

There's a reason we all speak instead of using PECS. Speaking has many advantages of using PECS. That is the truth. And that is why acknowledging that your child will never speak, even if they may learn to use PECS, can be rough. PECS is a downgrade from actual speech. Don't believe me? Pay $200 for proloquo2go on the iPad and then spend an entire day not speaking and only using PECS- see how much fun you have! It is perfectly reasonable to wish your child could speak over using PECS. HOWEVER, using PECS does not mean your child won't learn to talk. That's important to stress.

Are you able to find other families with similar kids? Having friends who "get it" can be so helpful too.

One thing to keep in mind is that she is likely to have to go through all the typical stages of grief. Understanding those and where she is in the process will help you understand what type of support she needs in the moment. I really hate that she wants to equate the current lack of progress with "ret*d," because we here all know that is not an appropriate conclusion at this point, but it is also possible that it is a stage she needs to go through to get to where she needs to be. And where she needs to be is accepting that your child together is an exciting but difficult to read book she needs to focus on page by page, savoring the words, and not trying to guess the ending.

OK first of all autism and mental retardation are not the same thing, secondly the term mental retardation isn't even really used you mean intellectual disability...that is the medical term used. So yes your wife needs to accept the son has autism...not listen to people that tell her 'oh he's a ret*d' that is not what autism means. Also having autism does not mean someone can never talk per say....it is possible he might be able to speak autism or not, could take longer to develop that if he remains unable to speak there are other means to help him communicate. A lot of non-verbal people with autism are able to type/write out their thoughts and don't be fooled the not talking does not mean 'no one home' he can hear all the conversations about him or that pertain to him that go on in front of him....and likely have feelings about that so I hope the mom keeps in mind there is a real person in there.

She is getting to hyperfocused on longing for a normal child that she's going to miss/not pay attention to the skills and personality traits he does have and express and is just going to be stuck on the 'but he'll never be normal and its a tragedy' so she will have to get past that in order to have the best relationship possible with the child. It will likely take time for her to feel better, maybe she just needs to be around enough to see that its not all hopeless and I guess continuing to try and be supportive. Is she at all open to the idea of going to therapy? its not just for the mentally ill its perfectly 'normal' to go to therapy if you are having a difficult situation in life that you need some help with...or like an objective person to talk to.

Anyone who uses the "r" word to describe your son is an ignorant excuse for a human being! I find it hard to believe it's still being used even as a medical term, because it was once acceptable to medically use words like "idiot" and "moron" , but were dropped because people used them negatively all the time. It disgusts me to no end that people, including adults who should know better, think Autistic people are the r word and are nothing but vegetables who slobber on themselves, can't be toilet-trained and have weird obsessions.

I really hope things work out for all of you.

Welcome to the club, my wife used to have plenty of friends and family and a busy social life. After my daughter's ASD diagnosis became common knowledge my wife also went through a period of denial before it became apparent that we no longer had any friends and people and family we knew keep their distance. It's just life! your wife will have to deal with it eventually. Look on the bright side, at least she now knows what her family really are...



Which is good! my daughter is mostly non-verbal but when she does speak she is vastly smarter and has a better memory than either my wife or me. If you son has strengths then focus on those. You can use PECs but also consider just talking (as slow and articulated as possible to allow him to process what you are saying) you may be surprised how much he is comprehending without you knowing.

That's very interesting. I may be observing something similar. I wonder if this is common.

I think many people have a sense that people are either blessed or cursed, winners or losers, in or out of favor with heaven, and they take misfortune and illness as signs of being on the wrong side of that dichotomy. They fear contagion and so avoid contact--I don't think it's conscious or thought through, just an emotional, superstitious reaction.

I've come to the conclusion that family find it awkward and perhaps don't want to have to be in a position where they have to deal they are i) related to our daughter and ii) have to say something that they are worried will come off as derogatory. In the case of former friends it's just awkward they have NT kids and they probably feel awkward about comparing their kids with mine (or something along those lines). I had two good friends from work who since my daughter's diagnosis have avoided attempts by me to get together with their kids. I've had nephews and nieces and cousins from my wife and my own family whom quite clearly don't want to have anything to do with our daughter. It's not like she has leprosy.

I'm not saying all these people are bad, I think it's just a sign of the times where disability doesn't fit people's ideals of a normal and happy life. Avoiding people like us just makes their own lives more straight forward I guess. I've learned to deal with it.

Bingo ! I was in your wife's shoes not quite a few months ago. I, too, looked and searched for hope that one day, some day, my son would begin to talk. I still yearn to hear his voice, I still struggle with the guilt / depression that maybe I didn't do enough to help him when he was 2/3, maybe I should have tried X or Y, the list goes on. I also have no support. My family and most friends live overseas, and, while I am married, my spouse isn't on the same page as me, and doesn't always work with me on his goals. Life has been really hard these last couple of years, and I ONLY fairly recently accepted that maybe my son won't be the NT that I long for / hoped for.

I don't believe necessarily that there is a magical age by which a child MUST talk, or else be written off as likely to remain non-verbal for the rest of his or her life. Statistics do not support my belief, necessarily, but I know of kids who talked in their teens and two people who finally became somewhat verbal in their 20s. In any case, at this moment in my life, I am a lot more depressed / worried / concerned over my son's (lack of) language development, and his limited attempts to communicate (via gestures / PECS / modified ASL signs), rather than his (lack of) speech.

I also have turned my focus on helping him gain important self-help skills. If he is going to live with me for the rest of my life, I may as well make sure that he is able to pick up after himself and clean up after himself, rather than having some one else do every little thing for him. In a nutshell, I don't want to be responsible for a toddler in a man's body when I am pushing 60, and am making darned sure that that won't happen (if I can possibly help it).

I absolutely empathize with your wife, and know what she is going through, but your son is still very young and I urge her to "keep the faith". Maybe you should have her sign up so that she can connect with the people here and learn for herself that autism (including LF / NV autism) isn't the end of the world. It may take a while for her to reach that place of acceptance and peace, but she will get there. Just give her time and lots of understanding.

Wishing you both the best. Hang in there.

She meant she saw it as silly and a waste of time since he would one day talk(well in her idea anyway).

She doesn't think he is ret*d by the way, it was more a depressed way she was saying she should accept what other people think of him. She is actually amazing and 1000X better at dealing with him than the average parent here, beating children NOT spanking, but beating is still believed to be the pinnacle of parenting. I've seen old people say hey my parents burned my hand over a gas stove and it did me good, thats the mentality we're dealing with.

I've had people say you're not in NYC you can beat him, strangers.

I would prefer some kind of invisibility bubble so I don't have to deal with people, I am not even sure I understand what people think so it doesn't bother me(probably a TOM thing). Unless I need something from someone like business or clients etc I don't care. But my wife does, she can't live like me.

Yes I think that's true. Before my first child was diagnosed, we were part of a "mommy and me" group. I considered those women to be my friends. We hung out regularly. When my son was a baby, he didn't behave typically, but people would comment that he must be really smart (because he was so serious and only interested in objects as opposed to humans). They didn't seem to mind that he was weird when it was a "good" weird. But when he was 2-3 not talking, not following instructions, not socialising at all, covering his ears, doing repetitive behaviours constantly, it started to get "bad" weird and I lost my friends. It did kind of feel like people thought he was contagious. I couldn't figure out if they thought his weirdness would rub off on their kids, or if they thought my bad parenting which caused my son to be like that would rub off on their kids. Either way, when my son was diagnosed, I made those cards about autism to hand out to random people who reacted badly (I was gung-ho back then, ) and the thing I put at the top was something about autism not being contagious...because it really felt like people thought it was (even though I'm sure cognitively most knew it wasn't really).

Edit: I think there is also an aspect of people just having no idea what to say or how to act around stuff that is "different".