<p>Thanks curiousmother - I firmly believe, had my son been my first child, I would not have caught on so early. My concerns started almost immediately…at the no babbling stage. ldgirl was a huge babbler…lol…and TALKER. Even though most docs will not formally diagnose until after 2 (some after 3), we were ready to go by that time.</p>
<p>teri - I agree with emeraldkity…later start is better than no start. And it is terrible expensive; for a long while, our life was one big insurance battle. And because my son was highly gifted, he was denied language therapy and other services provided by the State of Texas through the school districts. (Go figure the logic of that one. I guess they were willing to ‘leave him behind’.) So, a lot of those sessions were on us. But there were many things we learned to do ourselves to help our son. </p>
<p>In preschool, music class used to really freak him out. He would run down the halls at school and try to hide on music days. So I would drop him off at school on the regular schedule, return an hour later and we would do the music class together. He would sit in my lap and I would sit in the circle with the other children and we would bang drums, hit cowbells and rattle tambourines together. The teachers offered to let him skip music and do something else, but the key to some of these SI issues that come with autism is desensitization. I knew we had to work through this stuff. We called these things ‘our roadblocks’. Not always, but most of the time we were able to get around those roadblocks. Now…believe it or not, he is in the high school band and on the drumline. His room is lousy with snare drums, marching bass, bass, tenor and snare practice pads, music stands…a FIVE OCTAVE (huge) marimba, and an assortment of bongos, doumbeks and other ethnic drums. And he is very good!</p>
I sure hope you have shared that information with your insurance company who questions the validity of intense therapy. I suppose they need to hear stories like this.</p>
<p>I don’t know if any of you have read “Look Me In the Eye.” It’s the autobiography of someone with Asperger’s. He was high functioning…but weird. Very, very weird. He also is the one who designed a lot of the special effects for the rock group KISS. He didn’t like people very much, but he loved machines. </p>
<p>It’s not a great book from a literary point of view, but it is an interesting one in that it gives tthe rest of us an idea what it is like to live with Asperger’s.</p>
<p>Thank you Gladmom, I will keep an eye out for the film. I also enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.</p>
<p>Thank you for the posts. In addition to being a paraprofessional, I also have a very good friend that has a son with Asperger’s. Before we became good friends I was his para at my previous school. It’s been a joy to watch him grow. He has come a long ways and I know that if his parents hadn’t worked so hard to get him the services that he deserves, he wouldn’t be where he is today. My hat’s off to you all.</p>
<p>there are many good threads onthis topic in the “LD” forum on CC. LDmom has done an excellent job of identifying some of the many early “signs” of NLD, Aspergers, HFA, etc. There are still a lot of varied opinions as to whether these are continuums on a spectrum of disorders, overlapping disorders, clusters of disorders or different disorders with overlapping symptoms. Regardless, early identification and intervention is key.</p>