I need some encouraging stories

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We have started trying to integrate my son into daycare yesterday. He had attended a home daycare 6 months ago twice a week for about a month. We pulled him out because she felt he wasn't adapting well and that he didn't like her, and I realized right away she didn't understand his issues. He is 2 years old.
Recently he has been evaluated at the 10 month old for receptive language. He understood around 40 words, now I think it's around 50. He does not say any words, barely babbles, and when he does babble it's not complex, it's just mamamama, numnumnum, etc...
I knew that he was very delayed, and I know his social skills are behind the average and everything, but when I got into that daycare room and saw his behaviours versus the behaviours of the other children it really hit me just how severe his problems are. I had to step out to cry without him seeing. The other children went to sit down for snack, patiently waiting, talking to the staff, when they got their food they dug in. My son ran around the room, found a truck, lied down to watch the wheels spin while he rolled it. Of course they tried many times to call him to the chair, even helped bring him to the chair, but he didn't understand why he should stay. He fell off the chair because he has hypotonia and poor coordination and doesn't really comprehend danger. They had to almost drag him to the sink to wash his hands. Today they went to the park and he was the only one in a stroller because all the other children can be trusted to hold onto the rope.
He really doesn't understand most of the things we ask of him, he can't follow most directions, and often he's just not interested. It is so hard to even get his attention. He spent the whole hour yesterday trying to spin wheels and lying in the floor. Today they brought the truck to the playground with him to keep him calm in the stroller.
I am worried because he only has a special educator with him 2 hours a day. She is great, but his regular teacher just doesn't seem to get it, I'm worried he will be left to spin things alone all day. He has recently started using PECS to make requests, I told her he needs access to his book at all times, but every few minutes I would notice it back up on a shelf where he couldn't reach it, I kept taking it down and telling her he needed it, but she doesn't seem to understand how important it is for him to communicate. We are getting together in 2 weeks to write an intervention plan so I'm hoping we can resolve the PECS issue then.
I'm so sorry for rambling on, I've just been so down about everything. I've become so used to adapting to my sons way of functioning that I didn't realize how hard it would be to integrate him into a daycare. For now he has the aid all the time because he is only going 2 hours a day, but soon I will be back in school and he will be there full time. I don't see how his needs can be met by a teacher who is taking care of 6 other children. I fear he will spend his days spinning toys, and that he may lose what little communication he has if they don't start working harder with his PECS.
I guess the reason I'm writing all this is there are a lot of high functioning people on this forum, So a lot of the advice and problems aren't addressing my sons level of functioning. I would really love to hear from anyone who had a son like mine at this age who ended up being able to speak and listen to some instructions, and didn't run around a classroom oblivious to everyone. I'm not talking about someone who had a few but not many words, I mean really none, and no attempts at words. I am so concerned with his lack of understanding and that he doesn't attempt to imitate the sounds we make. I've also seen that while PECS work great at home, but if he doesn't learn to speak he has to rely on other people to make sure his pictures are available. If everyone could adapt to him the way I do I wouldn't worry so much, but I'm beginning to see that this won't happen, so I'm hoping he can do some more adapting of his own.
Again, so sorry about the long post, I needed to get it out, I'd really appreciate some positive stories.

I don't know what to say about the daycare situation because I've kept my boy home but my son didn't talk at 2 sans numbers and letters, he didn't respond to his name, he couldn't be trusted to play on the playground.... Somewhere around 2 1/2 echolalia kicked in, he started responding to his name more often ... he just turned 4 ... I still shadow him on the playground, but he's made a lot of progress, he knows how to read, is potty trained, he can answer yes-no questions and knows how to ask for things he wants with words.

I am so sorry you are feeling so down right now. It will get better. My son is 3 (turned 3 in Jan) and he has delays in receptive and expressive language
(and other issues). At 2, he wasn't saying much. Like the prior poster, echolalia kicked in at about 2.5 yo and is still going strong (he's repeating the books we read now). I was told by the ST that echolalia is usually the first sign of language for some kids. He still cannot have a back and forth conversation but he can ask for what he wants. The good news is, it gets better. I spent a lot of time reading to him and giving him "scripts" of what to say. I think this helped.

My son will run away (and has) the first chance he gets so don't feel bad about him being in a stroller. I made up my mind that I will just have to watch him closer until he understands not to run. My son doesn't have great social skills and I think he will be like your son, doing his own thing, when he starts pre-school in Sep. He will be going to a special ed pre-school so they understand what he needs and will work with him.

Some days I worry about his future but most days, I just try and enjoy my time with my children. Who knows what tomorrow holds. I tell myself that I could be raising the kid who will find a cure for cancer and something about the endless possibilities that are out there for him makes it easier to live in the present.

When I was three years old in preschool, I was a lot like your son, doing nothing but wandering around in a sensory-overloaded daze, saying zero words, toilet problems eberryday (which I remember clearly, yuck yuck yuck!), tried to run off the premises eberryday, completely ignored eberryone, nevar made requests through any mode of communication, did not initiate any communication. My grandmother who raised me then didn't eggspect me to understand any language or follow any directions, so who knows what my receptive language skills were, but my mother says that I had good receptive language by age five.

I nevar babbled either, and made very few noises. Certainly no imitation of others saying or doing anything. I did not respond to direct addresses in any way, as if the addresses had nevar occurred right in front of my face, and people did not eggsist. I had meltdowns and was sometimes violent. I remember hitting people. I was eggstremely rigid, and my parents gave in to all of my bizarro rituals, because I had an iron will and iron fists too. Forget any kind of social development, I had none for most of my childhood. But I learned to speak from age eight to age nine, and my communication improved a lot after that. I developed social skills later in adolescence. Oh yeah, I also had horrible motor skills and fell onto my face often, while not being able to hold anything in my shaky hands, eggsept the blocks that I liked to stack and my pencil to draw. That year from age three to age four was probably me at my most autistic. Part of it was me being in preschool where I was totally overloaded and the teachers had many children to deal with, so I understand your concerns for your son in that area. I did much bester a year later with an old lady babysitter with a few other kids in her home. She read me poetry and had me repeat it back, which I did as echolalia, then spoke a spontaneous sentence to her this one time.

However, I learned to read on my own by age three, learned arithmetic around then, learned to draw skillfully around then, had an amazing memory for eberrything that I saw or heard, started grade school with a junior high word reading level and not much reading comprehension, said zero words at school, learned to speak in a second language class, gained reading comprehension and verbal thinking abilities after learning to speak and communicate, learned gesturing after I learned to speak, got into a gifted and talented program based on a non-verbal test like Raven's Test, had a special education plan, talked to other kids by age ten, learned social skills starting in adolescence, had horrible executive dysfunction problems in seventh grade, made friends in high school, breezed through academics, went to Caltech for college, went to Harvard for graduate school, had my shared of autism-related troubles and a long-term burnout, works in education now, and plans to get into neuroscience/autism research in future, still totally autistic and socially oblivious, can teach a class of a hundred students, but can't greet someone without thinking it over, echoes what strangers say at the store, stims constantly, stares at spoons held in front of my eyes while speaking to others, misspells words on purpose on Internetz forums, etc etc etc.

I tell about my moar severely autistic eggsperiences to show that autistic kids can appear very out of it and problematic and delayed at a young age, but can learn all kinds of skills that seem out of reach when they are so very delayed, but also so very young. There's no need for you to feel doomed because your son appears so different from the other kids, and so behind in his developmental milestones. He will develop at his own pace and in his own way. Making requests usings PECS is a good sign. His receptive language through his ears is bad, but perhaps you could try reaching him through his eyes by teaching him to recognize pictures and words and understand labels for objects and actions, teaching to read now and then to type, why not? I learned to speak from reading written words, not from imitating the speech of others. My developmental milestones were all out of order, but I got them all eventually. Reading ---> Listening ---> Writing ---> Speaking. I learned multiplication before going to the bathroom. Also don't be discouraged if you are trying to teach and teach and teach and nothing appears to be going in or coming out. This is what happens in autistic children. They need a lot of eggsposure to whatever it is they are learning, and they won't necessarily give you any feedback that they are learning, but that doesn't mean that they are not learning. Keep teaching, stuff is going in. Never stop teaching. I remember entire conversations from a young age, and no one at the time knew that I understood anything or was paying any attention. My parents adapted eberrything to me when I was little, and that helped me feel comfortable and happy most of the time, and thus I was free to learn, learn, learn. There was no ABA or behavioral modification for me. Your son is only two years old, and there is no reason for you or anyone else to think that he does not have as much potential as any of the other kids so far ahead of him now.

Btbnnyr, thank you so much for the wonderfully detailed post. It was exactly what I needed to hear. We have spent most of his life to date just playing with him as much as possible, getting him to laugh. It helps me to know that he might be learning a lot of things but that we just don't see it yet. The speech language pathologist had mentioned that sometimes its like that, but I guess I needed reassurance that it was really true, sometimes I feel they are just trying to pacify me. I hope that he will be able to cope with daycare, he has only just started. The weird thing is that he has no problem in other busy settings. Interestingly he likes watching this hooked on phonics video where they show you how to write the alphabet, and sometimes he takes my hand and puts them on labels so I can tell them what they say, so maybe he will be like you and learn writing first.
Thanks again, it really helped.

btbnnyr,

I found your story amazing as well! What major accomplishments you had, and your family must have been so proud and amazed. It is great to know that some of our kiddos can and will have a good adulthood!

Just out of curious interest, can you explain the reasoning that you like to misspell on internet forums? I am a terrible speller, and find that I misspell but it is an accident not done on purpose...lol.

Again, thanks for your story!

We probably won't be able to have a staff just for him all day, but we're going to try to work our schedules so that he doesn't have to be at daycare too much. I think he would do so much better one on one, unfortunately we can't afford it and the government will only pay for 2. His aid is fantastic though, she has so many ideas for him, she is so perceptive, and after only 3 hours of knowing her he has started to turn to her to be picked up and comforted when he is upset, so it's a real relief. She taught him to get his PECS in his cubby so now they won't be putting it on the shelf when they need a table. I'm feeling a bit better seeing how perceptive she is and the bond that they are already forming. Hopefully we can get the other staff to give him a little extra attention when she isn't around.
That's so cool that your son is starting to vocalize his needs and that he learned to write with YouTube videos, because that's what we show my son too! I find them so boring but he loves it. I think he's really intelligent, he understands colors and shapes as well. He understood his PECS after 5 tries with one picture. Now he can look at any picture (objects, not so much with verbs), and he instantly knows what the picture is for. He's so smart, it's just the connection to our world that is harder for him, but these posts have given me hope that it will improve with time. Hearing all these stories had made me feel nice, I'm going to read them over if I start to lose hope again.

More good news, I've discovered he may be eligible for funding for another 3 hours with an aid. With nap time added in he would almost never be without someone just for him, I'm crossing our fingers that he will be approved for this assistance.

My son only started talking after he was 3. We were advised he may never talk and would have to be in special school.

He turns 5 in a few days but is off to mainsteam school. he will get upto 4 hours of aide time a day. Today the releif teacher took me aside and informed me that she thinks my son is anxious. she didn't realise it is autism. i am so proud of my little master.

I just wanted to say hello. My twin boys with ASD are 2 also. They will be 3 in August. I have many of the same concerns as you. It is so hard to have no idea what the picture may look like in Kindergarten/middle school/as an adult. Frightening.

I just want my kids to be happy. I think the key to that will be communication. I pray that they are able to communicate. It appears they are on the right path, but it is a slow journey.