My son is just about to turn 8 years old and for all of his life I've always thought there was something a little out there with him. I just figured I had a quirky kid!
When he was a toddler, he'd laugh when he was in pain and even does it now and a laugh preceeds the crying in pain. He was a pretty placid baby, slept all night like a log pretty much from the start.
Now since he's started school he appears to be getting progressively worse or maybe more noticable.When he was in kindergarden, I had him assessed to see wether he was ready for school and it was noted that he'd engage in parallel play and would play with things that other kids were playing with(if there was a duplicate toy etc) but not play WITH the kids and the object in question. I was told this is completely normal though I never saw other kids playing like this.
He has always made really wierd noises, some days louder than other days, some day more often than other days.
When he first started school, and I'd ask him what he did, he'd reply with "I don't know" and so I never did know what he did because he couldn't tell me. It was like he'd literally forget.
When he was in grade prep( 6 years old) he was made to repeat because he didn't know basic words or how to write his name, had no concept of sitting still and learning. He'd get up and play with the toys in the room rather than sit down with his peers and learn how to do things. Progressively, his behaviour got worse and worse and he'd start being mean to other kids and they'd be mean back. He has also done silly things like pee on a kids shoes cause they were mean to him and be rude to people.
Imagine our surprise two weeks ago when we got a knock at the door at 4.20am and the police were presenting our son who had run away. We had no idea and he was able to tell us he'd ran away a few times to "go have fun" riding around town.
We have always had issues with him not "listening" or understanding us when we are trying to explain dangers and the need for rules and it appears to go in one ear and out the other. He sit sits there expressionless and when we try to get feedback from here about we we just spoke to him about, he will kind of get the idea but can't relay it back and then will oddly enough go on to talk about something else. It's extremely frustrating to say the least.
He seemed to have his own language right up until he was around 4 and most people( even his g'parents) could not understand a word he said and i'd often have to translate for my son because I was the only one that could make some sense of what he was saying. Just recently at school, he was at the very bottom of his reading level, far below the beginners level. One day he asked me if he could read a book to me and so he did. He read one of his eldest sisters book and I thought he might have learned by rote. I grabbed another book and he was able to read that one too, and another and so on.
His teacher called one day to quiz us on his reading ability and asked if we'd been doing any training with him and we asked her the same thing and we both said no. We don't know how he came about his reading ability of which the teacher said was of 9-10 year old reading level. In fact he would be able to read this entire post without too much of a stumble.
He's always had a fascination for cars, every since he got his first toy cars and in particularly wiht spinning the wheels on them. In fact he loves to spin anything that is spinnable wether it's a spinning top or a CD, anything that can spin, he'll make it spin.
Anyways, he has always been a puzzling kid to us and while we love him heaps he is very frustrating to us. The more I read about Aspergers the more I am convinced he has at least mild aspergers.
Can anyone give me any insight and do you think it's possibly pointing to aspergers or some type of ASD??
I do apologise for the novel, but wanted to give a decent rundown!
24 Jul 2006, 11:05 pm
