Autism in young adults

surfcity
Tue, 02 Aug 2022 14:35:27 +0000

1Lotus:

The biggest take away is to go to an Autism specialist. It took my son a while to accept his diagnosis but now that we know it-we understand how to be better parents. Some things to look back on, (remembering all ASD diagnosis do not look the same) Childhood meltdowns that are more extreme than typical? Sensitivities to textures/noise/light/smells? Socialization challenges? Pain tolerances? (I’ve seen both sides of this-sometimes high, sometimes low tolerance) Fixation on interests? Unusual coping mechanisms? Strong black/white thinking? Overwhelmed?

Thanks for your reply! One of the challenges is that he does not seem to have any of these markers. He was a good student and no behavior/discipline issues, so that is probably why no red flags were raised. I think he is smart enough that he could cover any executive functioning or disorganized habits and still get good grades. He probably never learned good study habits because he didn’t “need” to and he most certainly never learned to advocate for himself. In hindsight that is probably more due to the potential autism Dx holding him back from understanding how to ask for help.

No meltdowns, a very, very compliant child. Probably too compliant, which is not good, but at the time, everyone is so happy to say what a good kid he was. The only thing that we can recall is he did not want to start preschool and the first month was rough separating from mom. We chalked that up to social anxiety/shyness.