Some clues about Autism confused by deafness at a early age.

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[quote=Autism disguised?/Ages 2-5 deafness Past Recording "]

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... pic&t=5372 [/quote]

Part of this writing came from a article of a mom and
her son David......born 1974. I Ghosthunter was born 1966

Thoughts about my Mom!



For my case, my mom didn't know how to relate
to people, and here children, other than me grew
up distant and slightly autistically extreme in one
way or another.

My first sister was born in 1965,
I was born in 1966

And my mom never took me out of the crib until
our grandmother got us in 1968. My grandmother
had to teach me to crawl and then walk.

My sister now aides autistic children, oddly because
she needed the income and we don't really talk.

She was always pratical and I extreme.
or a wild child.

My mom married her second husband and had
a daughter(my 1/2 sister) and due to her inability
to relate and take care of kids, my 1/2 sisters
dad's parents got her. She too is a wild and
disconnected child. She, I last heard, was a stripper.
Wild and party like like our mom. she was
born 1971. Autistic? I don't know, but not normal
and distant like our mom and myself.

my 2 1/2 sister was the product of a truckdriver
relationship and she later married her 3rd husband
(divorced himself 4 times?) and still married out
of convience?

this sister was born1980. she was quiet, shy and
distant and drawn deeply into books, PDD if I am
guessing right.

the refridgerator mom theory has genetic results?
My mom would fall into it. But of course autism is
genetic and brain development related.
_________________________________________


This is what I think on my case of autism. Loss of
hearing and regained hearing, thus language skills
of the toddler to child late-delayed. The autism symptoms
are apparant to me. Some others could say brain
traumatic stuff....ect...! But I say autism.

Born 1966 and regained hearing, but deaf
at one point just the same. Post-traumatic
stuff? But too many obvious autistic stuff
obviously present...Hmmmm? makes you wonder!
________________________________________




Something I remember from my speech and school
councelors!



Something I lacked at 15 and started the darkness cycle!
Being not understood how I communicate by Karl,
I was told "Boy keep playing the piano and there's
the door" thus begun my dark journey that I am
trying to curb. The lack of support in a family
does play a large part in one's development,
and thus with a distant mom(emotionally) and
distant step-father(Karl-but by age 34 we made up
after 19 years of homeless and literal meaning
and no communication skills).

This led to living with a temperment that doesn't
tolerate wolves in sci-fi con's and roleplaying groups
who played double standards on me. Thus I
grew much more anger and quicker lashing out
because of their insinceriies and crualities.

this didn't make my autist rage anymore improved,
but despise being downplayed for others pleasure.

Now if I had a normal loving communicative family,
that most of you seem to have, things would have
been differnt, and wolves wouldn't have shaped my
temperment of being played with and asked to
lose identity for others kicks.




Thus this lack of and on top of it anger, made me struggle
in more ways than 1.

I just thought to share!

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

OK Stan,

Let me work through these things one by one.

Deafness and communications:
Back to the theories on language development. If a deaf child grows up in a deaf family, the child will learn sign language as a normal child would learn english. Even a hearing child living in a deaf family will pick up sign language easier. This is because the child imitates sign language in a form of babbling using their hands (there have been studies on this and vidoes which actually show the child trying to figure out how to communicate with the rest of the family). A deaf child who is also autistic would not pick up on sign language because the parts of the brain that deal with communication are miswired.

In your case, once the hearing problem was fixed, you started to learn how to communicate. It was slower however (just like a deaf child in a hearing family takes longer to learn sign language) because the most opportune time to learn language and communications is in the 1 - 4 years old age range. You did learn it however the same way that a deaf child living in a hearing family learns sign language.

Regarding David, he would be the same age as I am. There is one detail however that you left out. Autism was not listed in the DSM until DSM-IIIR was released which was 1980. If you look at papers on myself from 1978 and 1979, you will not find any mention of Autism in the papers even though it was suggested to my mother. The fact that David was diagnosed at 6 confirms this fact. Papers from another assessment done when I was 9 (1983) suggest that I do have a PDD but it is not severe. This shows the differences a couple of years can make.

In your case, since you were in regular classes and it seemed to be working (based on interview, I know the other problems but they would not have caught the teachers attention), no one would have recommended you to be examined. That is why you had no IEP. IEPs are only developed for those who have problems in the regular classroom setting.

As far as the refridgerator mother theory, you stepped in it, you can extract yourself from it

Hmmm... will have to mull this over.

BTW, GH, you said you're birthday's in October. Not too far off.

I love you sight LJBouchard. Thanks for keeping a
open mind.

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

I hope you are alright, i found spacecase was put in
a pickle due to the tornado? Huricane?. hows it on your
end.

I am glad you read this bit on history and autism/deafness
asscociation. I found the article fit nicely into the genre
of my younger years.

Thanks also for listening, or trying to listening to the
rough recording. i hear scoots made a clean sounding
version of it. i hope he can post it.

My birthday is oct 19, and thanks for mulling over this
piece of pre-DSMIII history and thought.

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

Just thought I would point out that kids on the Spectrum often find it easier to pick up sign language...

Makes sense. I don't know anyone (IRL) with autism to the point where he/she cannot speak. Because many autistic children do not respond, I see how that could be confused with being deaf.

I was tested for deafness when i was a kid because i wasnt that big a responder to things.

I would bet that most people on the spectrum are tested for hearing because that needs to be ruled out.

This is interesting.

When I was a kid, I was found to be deaf. But after getting hearing aids, I would still ingore others calling my name. On several of my reports, the teacher said that when prompted (after ignoring them calling me), I could tell them exactly how many times that they called me from across the room.

Other problems were primarily with handwriting, organization, and rote memory.

I was not considered rebelious or defiant, but in fact, in many ways a model student. I was able to get along very well with the teachers in a very sophisicated manner from a early age, and in contrast I could barely get along with my peers on almost every level.

After 4 years of flirting with diaster (4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grade) I was dx'ed ADD.

It bothers me that I had to go through so much before anyone realized something was not entirely ok. I wonder if I got along a little too well with my teachers, because they all thought I was putting on a act of sorts and trying to play a "game".

Am I in fact autistic/AS? I don't know, and have doubts. But it upsets me that I had to go through so much hell before anyone realized I was LD/ADD.

I agree with you. The absence of thought conveying
is obvious even as adults in the spectrum. I don't have
enough data on my earlier interactions with other kids,
and as you find spectrum kids become adults this lapse
of memory may become more self-evident.

We may block out the bad and as time moves on, we
selectively forget, more-so as the situtations are more
intense than others.

Thanks for posting your thoughts here,

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

Again a good point. And a question?......
at what point is acting or being deaf temporary
or long term, or just no words and responses(non-deaf)

is autism disguised? And where does socially shy
apply?

Hmmm?

Thanks for posting here.... and good points.


sincerely,
Ghosthunter

I am curious! Since you live in Scotland, Glascow area?
how is autism viewed there and what kind of support
services there?

Just curious....

I assume it was a autism quietness? if not was there
temporary deafness?

What were the diagnoses before autism?

Thanks for posting here.

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

A good example of ignoring the envirement.
Did you have negative feelings about this or
neutral ones.



Handwriting is most persons curse.

Organizational skills can vary....How bad in
organizing are you?

Rote memory? Isn't that repeating things Heard?
If so, would you say that is how most kids learn?
I don't claim to be a rote memory expert of any
kind...



Perhaps a maturitiy issue or autistic acceptance
thing? I really don't know.

Peer to peer is not always natural in everyone. But
being a model student is excellent, and i cannot say
i was that. Nor can others.



I assume that is comfortable one to go by?



Why?




Hmmmm? From what i remember seeing in our visit,
and a pleasant one at that(thanks, you and your folks
are wonderful), I would say No to autism, but that is
just my opinion. You had too much stronger emphasis's
on area's I and others i have met don't have stronger
emphasis's on. But....that is just my opinion.


Thanks for posting here,
Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

Phoenixkitten wrote: "Just thought I would point out that kids on the Spectrum often find it easier to pick up sign language..."

Yes - that is what I find when working with autistic children and adults - I only work with those exhibiting extreme, often very dangerous, patterns of behaviour. Generally all my clients are in the intellectually impaired range, often severe to profound as tested. The first thing I do is to make the instructors stand still and use exaggerated single gestures accompanied by simple verbal instructions. [In part this is to reduce the number of messages being transmitted by NTs who are generally unaware of how many conflicting signals they are sending moment to moment.] NTs do not understand how visual we tend to be and that the meaning of words [sounds] is always referenced to action. [Action must come first if word-sounds are to develop a common meaning.] NTs assume [from their perspective] that words have absolute meaning, thus the words will have [the same] absolute meaning to autistic children. However many autistic children speak brilliantly, but say little. I have identified children and adults who do not even [at ages as late as 12 years] identify their mothers, father or siblings by spoken names, i.e. "Take this and give it to your mother!" because no one helped them "attach" the word-sound to the person-object.

A good paper to read about development of referenced communication is: "Autism And Visual Impairment - Making Sense" by Fiona Boyce and Fiona Hammond on the web site for the Scottish Sensory Centre.

Jim Crawford.

Hi Ghosthunter, I have been going through the diagnostic process since June and have had a preliminary diagnosis and i have visited an autism resource centre but i wont use the resources until if/when i get diagnosed because i wont feel comfortable doing it until then but i think Glasgow is quite good i think as far as autism resources go.

There are support and social groups and a project where you get trained for work with autism friendly employers. Of course i cant say how good these resources are until i use them but it does sound promising.

I passed the hearing test when i was younger so presumably i was just not responding to what i heard though i have a deaf half-brother and i failed an audiogram in trying to join the Irish army due to a lack of response to noise in my right ear. I have also had problems used a canister for chest problems and had speech therapy for short spells in the past but as far as i know im not diagnosed with anything yet.

I felt bad reading you're story (not heard it yet, hopefully scoots can sort out a crisper version) because my mum and dad have been far from perfect but if i need them they are there for me.