Hi,

I see autism/asperger's discussed as a spectrum but it seems to me like it's several virtually independent spectrums of traits. They conspire though over time either in a positive or negative way... ie if you are too distracted by the wrinkles in your diaper or the repetitive motion of the fan to listen to the people around you then you don't work on social skills or language. If you have poor language skills you can't have a discussion about how it feels to have past TV shows on in your head all the time.

I found this online assessment tool when I was worried about DS (now 4) and found it helpful in that it broke things down into several groups of traits. http://www.childbrain.com/pddassess.html Be sure to click on each line for the explanation before choosing a number.

For DS, he had language delay and had a early intervention screening. They offered a couple different services and we accepted only the speech.

DS does not have natural social skills on the level of some of his agemates. If he scored the way he does in social skills in every category he'd cross the line and face some real difficulty. But in his other traits such as imaginary play he is way ahead of most his age, and his social skills aren't on their own bad enough to make life really hard.

At 16 months (when DS had the EI screening), and he clearly failed to show okay social interaction according to the test. One of the items on the list was "show turn taking by playing ball with examiner". Well, DS has never seen much point in balls, and there was also a roomfull of other toys there that he did have interest in, and we'd already been in the building about 20 minutes by the time they got to that part, and he was about done. So that failed him on turn taking. Add in poor eye contact (which he still has, but now only after the novelty of any situation wears off) and that gets one labelled with a social delay and offered services for it.

I remember going home from that assessment and having ice cream, 3 people eating out of one container, and DS easily pointing at each person in order of who's turn it would be next, waiting (only a very short time) for his turn without having a fit, and seeming to get some pleasure too from the mutual experience of taking turns and eating ice cream together. The ball game wasn't a fair test of his ability to follow social rules.

My own personal feeling at the time was that if he could just talk better everything else would be okay, and so far it has been. He's definitely quirky but not to the level the initial assessment would have suggested.

Be sure that you are getting services for issues that are real, and not accept services just because they are offered if it is for something you really feel will just be okay. The reason is the time commitment, there is so much else kids can do at that age and there can be disruption of their sleep or schedule in order to make it to appointments on time. There is also the risk, if they are a perfectionist and have good language comprehension, of them becoming worried about their own development. Don't think a 16 month old or 2 year old can't feel bad about themselves, no one criticized DSs speech and somehow he still was upset by it. Sometimes when we would happily praise him for getting out a word like, "bottle" (actually it sounded like ba) he would burst into tears -- it was all just not how he wanted it to be.

It seemed to help when I would lie and tell him that I had the exact same difficulty when I was his age, we had some one sided adult sounding "conversations" about this that did seem to help. One of his first real sentences around 2 was a pitifully sad sounding, "I can't say anything."

No one prepared me for that -- no one seems to think a barely verbal 18 month old or 2 year old can be self-aware to that point, but they can. No one warned me that they would be just as complex at that age as they are at an older age (for example at 3 if I said no we can't go to the park right now it could result in DS deciding that really he actually does not like the outdoors after all so that later when I say hey want to have a picnic the answer would be no, because he only likes the indoors). How am I supposed to know that is what the crying about the picnic means if there is barely any speech! I only know because there were occasions when we somehow managed to figure out his feelings and they were oddly complex for the age.

And no one let me know what to do when distraction did not work (bubbles, swings etc does not work if a child has an obsessive need for something they can not have, such as a repeat trip to the Museum of Natural History in another state because we missed one hall).

Complex and self-contradictory thoughts have to be communicated in order to have a parent help them through it. So if cognitive development and receptive language is much higher than expressive language I really do think that that alone can cause strings of horrible tantrum laden days. Not saying in your particular child that part is a result of poor communication, but based on my one experience with my own DS it's not out of the question.

Sorry that got long winded -- I have painful memories of a time when I did not know how I could make DS feel happy and just get us all through the day peacefully. For us the key was speech, but obviously that may just have been us. I hope this frustrating time in your lives is short.

Polly