by Pat on Feb 28, 2009 at 5:13 PM
Filed in Autism Family Facts | Parenting Autistic Children | Stories from Readers
Before I realized my younger son has autism, I thought he had a language delay because he comes from deaf parents. It is typical for any hearing children of deaf parents but I didn't realize I had missed all of the red flags. For instance, he had a real bad temper tantrum by throwing things up in the air, dashing it off where there were many busy cars, pointed at things that he wanted, kept waking up in the middle of the night to sleep with us, and interacted with anyone except me. He did not have any language or use sign language at 3 1/2.
This has changed after I worked non-stop with him on every possible language for 3 1/2 years. His language, interaction, emotions and so forth has changed a whole lot. At age 6 1/2, he now speaks 8 words per sentences or 3 short sentences even fooled many of his teachers (GE teacher, SLP,and RSP) that we went on a trip to London on our Fall Break. This includes to teaching to use his emotions. He only can use: angry, mad, scary, sad, hurt, weird, and grumpy. While we are still working on his language, he uses lots of verbal language more than sign language. His receptive skills in sign language is GREAT because he usually replied in verbally. He only express signs a little bit such as
"Chocolate Milk Please."
I must say that to all of the parents with autistic kids, "Don't give up, be patience and keep working in every possible you can think of something." That includes giving your child some rewarding for efforts.