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Psychpi
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24 Nov 2010, 12:03 am

Greetings! My son was recently rediagnosed as having Asperger's after having been diagnosed with severe autism up until this year at 7. He's doing wonderful and it's been great to see the progress he has made over the last year since we adopted him.
When he came here (at 6) he didn't talk at all and only made repetitive sounds like "uh uh, uh uh". Then he started in with a few words for his obsessions like food items and trains (at 6) with lots of work here at home. His vocabulary is growing daily and he's even putting together two and three words now, though he is hard to understand. He leaves off the last syllable like crack for cracker and cook for cookie, but he can clearly say words like scissors and train track. He can say eat but leaves off the e sound on the end of words and if I try to help him, then the last sounds comes out like an "uh" sound (cook-uh).
To get to the point, each day he talks more and more with lots of echolalia and even new words coming out. Did anyone out there talk at 6 or older, or have a child who did so, and go on to develop typical speech later? I know it's pretty uncommon to begin speaking at 6, so he's already broken the molds. His receptive speech is 100% now and he's one smart kiddo.
As for the recent Asperger's diagnosis, he began to speak a few words around 18 months and then lose it so the PDOC felt it qualified, and something about HFA and Asperger's now being merged anyway. That irks me a bit because I like everything to fit into a neat little black and white category, but it is what it is. (Recently dx mild Aspie myself along with my oldest dd, so it's nice to have adopted another one into our family). ;-)
Thank you in advance.



missykrissy
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24 Nov 2010, 12:26 am

my little nephew did not start speaking until he was six or seven(can't remember exactly) he did say a few words when he was 2 but lost them shortly after learning them. in between he could only say baba which meant drink or food and mama. his speach came together pretty quickly, like your little guy, when it started to come together. now he is 12 and his speach sounds a little funny, he makes some letter sounds ackwardly but other than that he speeks well and has an ever growing vocabulary. congrats to your little man for the progress he's made!



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24 Nov 2010, 12:54 am

Is there a reason why he stopped talking or did it happen for no reason?

Your son sounds like me from when I was little. I had echolalia and I left endings off of words and I didn't talk well either when I was five but when I was six, that's when I started talking for real. My mom said I learned pretty fast.


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Psychpi
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24 Nov 2010, 1:05 am

Thank you, guys! You give me hope for his future speaking. As to why he quit speaking, I'm not really sure. His biological mom was a cocaine user and I don't think he got the 1 to 1 attention he should have, along with a lot of neglect issues. Then again, maybe it was just going to happen anyway? There is some question about prenatal cocaine exposure for him as well. The records we have don't really indicate if his speaking stopped suddenly or was a gradual decline. He went to the hospital for a chest cold and was saying age appropriate words around 18 months, and then at 3 (almost 4) he was diagnosed with autism and looked pretty classic from the reports (spinning, no eye contact, lining things up, seeming deaf and not responding to his name, tip toe walking). He has none of that now. :) He's amazing and we have really connected.



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24 Nov 2010, 1:18 am

I have read that sometimes doctors will change a child's diagnoses to Asperger's because they made so much improvement they are no longer self help delayed nor speech delayed. They just now function at the AS level.


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Psychpi
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24 Nov 2010, 1:50 am

He is no longer self help delayed at all, and I think his previous "severe" diagnosis was from all of the medication they had him on before. He was scared, sad, lonely, and missing his mother in foster care so he acted out and they drugged him. He's no longer on all of that and it shows. He is obviously still very speech delayed, but otherwise extremely high functioning (gifted mechanically).



missykrissy
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24 Nov 2010, 1:58 am

my nephew was also neglected by his mother and i think that really contributed to his slow start. i just wanted to add that he went from being incredibly behind in school and getting failing grades before he was talking to almost being caught up with average, incase that is also a concern for you. the way he is going i think he will catch up or surpass his classmates before highschool.



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24 Nov 2010, 3:28 am

Yeah, well, if he ever had a delay, he's not supposed to be diagnosed Asperger's. Actually, most people diagnosed Asperger's aren't supposed to be diagnosed Asperger's--it's a vanishingly rare category, and in reality most AS cases fall into classic autism or atypical autism instead. That's why they're being merged. So... the categories weren't black and white to begin with. They were just completely messed up.


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24 Nov 2010, 4:08 am

Psychpi wrote:
Greetings! My son was recently rediagnosed as having Asperger's after having been diagnosed with severe autism up until this year at 7. He's doing wonderful and it's been great to see the progress he has made over the last year since we adopted him.
When he came here (at 6) he didn't talk at all and only made repetitive sounds like "uh uh, uh uh". Then he started in with a few words for his obsessions like food items and trains (at 6) with lots of work here at home. His vocabulary is growing daily and he's even putting together two and three words now, though he is hard to understand. He leaves off the last syllable like crack for cracker and cook for cookie, but he can clearly say words like scissors and train track. He can say eat but leaves off the e sound on the end of words and if I try to help him, then the last sounds comes out like an "uh" sound (cook-uh).
To get to the point, each day he talks more and more with lots of echolalia and even new words coming out. Did anyone out there talk at 6 or older, or have a child who did so, and go on to develop typical speech later? I know it's pretty uncommon to begin speaking at 6, so he's already broken the molds. His receptive speech is 100% now and he's one smart kiddo.
As for the recent Asperger's diagnosis, he began to speak a few words around 18 months and then lose it so the PDOC felt it qualified, and something about HFA and Asperger's now being merged anyway. That irks me a bit because I like everything to fit into a neat little black and white category, but it is what it is. (Recently dx mild Aspie myself along with my oldest dd, so it's nice to have adopted another one into our family). ;-)
Thank you in advance.

Greetings back! Yours is an encouraging post. My boy could say words very well at 2.5yrs although they were very infrequent, e.g. the word chocolate was annunciated syllable by syllable chock-oh-latt.
I have not heard a word from him for half a year and he turned four yesterday.



claudia
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24 Nov 2010, 5:49 am

Psychpi wrote:
Greetings! My son was recently rediagnosed as having Asperger's after having been diagnosed with severe autism up until this year at 7. He's doing wonderful and it's been great to see the progress he has made over the last year since we adopted him.
When he came here (at 6) he didn't talk at all and only made repetitive sounds like "uh uh, uh uh". Then he started in with a few words for his obsessions like food items and trains (at 6) with lots of work here at home. His vocabulary is growing daily and he's even putting together two and three words now, though he is hard to understand. He leaves off the last syllable like crack for cracker and cook for cookie, but he can clearly say words like scissors and train track. He can say eat but leaves off the e sound on the end of words and if I try to help him, then the last sounds comes out like an "uh" sound (cook-uh).
To get to the point, each day he talks more and more with lots of echolalia and even new words coming out. Did anyone out there talk at 6 or older, or have a child who did so, and go on to develop typical speech later? I know it's pretty uncommon to begin speaking at 6, so he's already broken the molds. His receptive speech is 100% now and he's one smart kiddo.
As for the recent Asperger's diagnosis, he began to speak a few words around 18 months and then lose it so the PDOC felt it qualified, and something about HFA and Asperger's now being merged anyway. That irks me a bit because I like everything to fit into a neat little black and white category, but it is what it is. (Recently dx mild Aspie myself along with my oldest dd, so it's nice to have adopted another one into our family). ;-)
Thank you in advance.

You was a brave woman adopting this child. You and your son deserve this and much more than this.
I gave birth to my son and it's hard for me, but you choose him.



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24 Nov 2010, 12:53 pm

Psychpi wrote:
He is no longer self help delayed at all, and I think his previous "severe" diagnosis was from all of the medication they had him on before. He was scared, sad, lonely, and missing his mother in foster care so he acted out and they drugged him. He's no longer on all of that and it shows. He is obviously still very speech delayed, but otherwise extremely high functioning (gifted mechanically).



Maybe that could be why they diagnosed him with AS because they figure all that behavior came from when he was drugged and the situation he was in.


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j0sh
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24 Nov 2010, 1:11 pm

Psychpi,

You sound like a great mom and perfect match for a child on the spectrum. Keep up the good work. :P



Psychpi
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24 Nov 2010, 7:54 pm

Thank you all. :) I'm glad this post could be encouraging to someone because it's been very encouraging to me as well. We're the lucky ones to have him. :wink:



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24 Nov 2010, 8:00 pm

Mmhm. What does it matter which diagnosis he has? If he's getting what he needs, the label can be dropkicked into the nearest file cabinet and not see the light of day, if you so desire. (Well, you'll want to have a good conversation with him when he starts asking questions and/or gets the hang of conversations, obviously.) Autism is very diverse; you can't just see an autistic kid as a Generic Autistic Kid.


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Psychpi
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24 Nov 2010, 8:09 pm

The big benefit to his new diagnosis was that they pulled him out of the moderate/severe mental retardation class where he was frustrated and didn't learn a thing. He is now in a self-contained class but is receiving age appropriate instruction and homework. That's all I really care about, that he is challenged and not underestimated just because he thinks and learns differently.....not less.