MK13 - one thing that I am struck by in your last post is that your DS may very easily have BOTH speech (physically forming words) and language (pragmatics of social communication) issues going on at once and the speech therapists you have been seeing perhaps are either not distinguishing the two (lack of skill on their part), or are failing to communicate well with you about what they are seeing/treating and how/why (lack of communication with you). I can certainly get how frustrating it must be that the therapy you are being offered is so distressing for your children and I don't subscribe to the idea that it doesn't matter if it's traumatizing them, it must be done this particular way because that's what we do with autistic kids... I would be stopping seeing those practitioners too. But quality of the current services is a different issue from whether there actually IS a speech or language issue that needs to be addressed (in a way that works).
I do wonder with the IEP meeting to what extent the generic "these are the services children with Autism get..." is supposed to be followed up by the actual practitioners figuring out what KIND of speech/OT/etc is most beneficial for this particular child?
Finally, I would have thought that "A preschooler trapped in a 1 yr old's body" falls directly inside the "pervasive developmental delay" category? ASD is not only one thing, it's a group of issues all of them on a spectrum, your two sons may have different subsets of those issues, and each issue expressed in quite different ways, thus both sons can then seem very different and still be on the spectrum (just as two gifted children can be very different but still both be gifted). For example - you can see both hyperlexia OR dyslexia with Aspergers, you might see under responsiveness OR over responsiveness to sensory input (and one child may be under sensing in one area and over sensing in another). One child may express their motor development issues through clumsiness, another through limited motion... But all of the issues still fall inside "pervasive developmental delay".
I am pretty sure that the Speech therapist we had through early intervention (done as of last week) had limited experience with children like my son. When I offered advice on how to approach him because clearly, I know how to approach him, she still wouldn't follow. She would push simple things like wanted him to say "open" or "open gate" (gate to our playroom where we did the therapy) and he would refuse to repeat it. The more she'd push the more frustrated he got. To me it looked like he simply did not want to say it because he did not want that particular action happening. ... I got him to say it very easily and since then any time he wanted me to open a door for him or gate, he'd say "open" or "open please". Or I'd ask him "do you want me to open the gate" and he says "no" or "yes open". But he refused repeating things after the therapist or engage in what she wanted him to do. I work with him every day through activities HE wants to do and I just take part in them and he's usually just fine with it. In fact he doesn't want me to go away and wants me to keep playing with him. ... I didn't know it had a name until I came across "floor time" approach to therapy. He responds to it much better.
He's freshly three and still can't walk down the stairs. He will scoot down but takes him a long time to think through how to tackle the first one or two steps. After that he just keeps going. He has learned to walk upstairs finally just recently. He can climb ok, he can get down from high places ok but the look on his face when he's sitting at the top of the stairs looking down, it says "oh, what to do? what to do?" He just gets stuck and can't plan those first moves. On the other hand, he has GREAT balance! Go figure! So definitely some sort of motor issue going on.
I do trust the place where I'm taking him for the speech eval in the morning and they know me and I know they will take me seriously. So, should THEY say they don't see any motor issues I am suspecting, I will have some peace and will just keep on working with him. He is improving every day in all directions so I am quite happy with his progress at the moment. I told my husband just today that I feel like DS3 has jumped from being a 1year old to being at least a 2year old in a matter of one week! If that isn't progress, than what is?
