When you don't quite know what to think

The more I watch Taters, the more I find myself wondering if his little peculiarities aren’t ASD related, but down to his speech delay. Now he is talking he’s advancing so quickly it seems feasible to me that he will just catch up with other kids and this will all be a storm in a teacup.


Our latest developments are verbally arguing with me – as opposed to just stropping and crying - telling me little lies and also singing. He couldn’t do any of these things just three weeks ago. It feels like anything is possible. Even his repetitive talking is disappearing and our conversations are made up of him answering me, or adding in a new sentence or observation as opposed to repeating himself or whatever I just said.


A year ago I wouldn’t have imagined my angry, antisocial little boy who couldn’t speak would be such a little chatterbox who I’m not even sure I would class as shy anymore. So I do wonder where we’ll be when the assessment does finally go ahead.

But this doesn’t mean I can ignore the ASD thing or write it off, because this is something I may well have to face up to and deal with and I would rather be prepared for that as best I can. I don’t want hitting with the same bombshell twice. I do know that he’s a little different, he does struggle to socialise with other children, language is so new to him right now he’s not sure how to talk to other children, he’s developing imaginative play but nowhere at the same level as his cousins (who are girls, I don’t know what other little boys are like at his age) He is a little apprehensive in new situations, though not to the same degree he used to be… Still, he does stand apart from other children, I just don’t know whether those differences put him on the spectrum, or whether where he’s at now is just an autistic-like phase that he’ll grow out of, just has he’s already left behind many of the red flags that used to worry me.

I’m finding it really doesn’t help though when people try to tell me there’s nothing wrong with him. It actually irritated me the other day when a well meaning friend advised me he absolutely wasn’t autistic. Sure I want to hear those words, but from someone who has thoroughly assessed him and someone who really understands ASD. It quickly became apparent my friend did not. He went on to say it was probably just aspergers as though that’s nothing to be upset about. Firstly aspergers is a form of autism, and, and... I need to remain open minded about this and sticking my head in the sand isn’t going to help anyone, least of all Taters.

And there is a silver lining to this cloud. This whole thing has made me think more about how he sees the world, and take a closer look at my own parenting style which is more often than not reactionary rather than considered. I’ve been reading up on parenting highly sensitive children as well as children on the spectrum and I feel like I’m starting to understand him more as a result, because yes, I do see elements of him in both these categories. 

I’m now much more tolerant of his foibles and less thrown by his strops, and I feel like I’m finding ways to deal with situations that really work for him, work for us. My confidence as a mother is growing because I actually feel like I know what I’m doing for a change.

I’m now in the process of keeping a diary of things that he does – new developments, examples of imaginative play, improving communications, how he handles different situations etc. But also of behaviour that concerns me. It’s not an attempt for me to convince them he’s “normal”, or a stack of evidence to disprove their ASD theories. What good would that do? If he needs help then I want to make sure he gets it. At the appropriate level to meet his needs. I just want the diagnosis to be accurate and I often felt that the speech therapist put words in my mouth when I couldn’t answer her questions, words that backed up her theories and weren’t always accurate. I’m angry about that and I have no intention of letting it happen again.