Harbingers of Autism

re: Harbingers of Autism

cameronmo — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:00:34 GMT

I saw this activity in my son about 30 years ago, long before doctors and counselors ever mentioned Aspergers Syndrome. He would roll his Matchbook cars back and forth, right in front of his eyes, while lying down or having his head down. He was more interested in that, than playing with other kids around him. Please keep up your research so that other families can find answers before their child turns 18, which is how long it took for my son to be officially diagnosed.

re: Harbingers of Autism

jeryto — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:25:18 GMT

The only problem with the first commenter's theory is the unusual brain growth noted above is before children would have received their first dose of the MMR vaccine.

re: Harbingers of Autism

rickdg — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:36:23 GMT

To jeryto: Why is there a problem if the unusual brain growth occurs before children would have received their fisrt dose of the MMR vaccine, unless of course the only cause you're willing to attribute to autism is the MMR vaccine. Don't you think it possible that the vaccine has nothing to do with autism? Norway banned Thimerosal in vaccines in 1994, California banned it in 1999 and most of the rest of the country in 2004 yet rates continue to skyrocket in all of those places. Should we throw out an idea because it doesn't fit in the "vaccines caused it" box?

re: Harbingers of Autism

KFish1987 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:45:35 GMT

If the MMR vaccine causes autism why doesnt every child who has received the vaccine have autism?

re: Harbingers of Autism

rickdg — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:06:52 GMT

To Jeryto: I apologize, I just re-read your post and see it was a reply to lasercodbg.

re: Harbingers of Autism

Mrs. Jinx — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:51:26 GMT

Having 3 autistic children of my own (asperger's syndrome on both sides of the family ) I often find these articles unintentionally hilarious.

"Still, the correlation wasn’t perfect: 6% of healthy infants in the study also showed abnormal head growth from birth to 6 to 14 months, and 41% of babies later diagnosed as autistic did not show that pattern." Forty-one percent? FORTY-ONE PERCENT?! That's almost as bad as just guessing! And guess what, all three of my kids are in that 41%! In fact, my oldest's head size was in the 90th percentile AT BIRTH. (ouch)

re: Harbingers of Autism

Xavier99 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:59:41 GMT

Well as a parent of an autistic girl, we have used alternative treatments to help my daughter recover from this condition but she is not fully there yet. About two months ago we started giving her drops from heavymetaldetox.net and she leaped to another level (she actual had a short conversation with me like never before, its been a two year journey for my family and nothing we had ever done helped her as much as this. In my gut I feel it was the vaccines and a combination of something else, maybe genetics but as a parent it’s very personal conclusion. I was told that thermisol was removed from these shots but when I checked the vaccine box it was there (as parents how can we trust anything anymore). To all if vaccines don’t harm anyone then why has the Govt set up a vaccine injury fund to pay those injured? See for yourself www.hrsa.gov/Vaccinecompensation/ (on the left click on Covered Vaccines) MMR is there…

re: Harbingers of Autism

maclaren99 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:27:08 GMT

SpiritHorse Therapeutic Center in Corinth, Texas provides free therapy for children with autism (as well as others with disabilities or trauma) and has had results that look pretty impressive, incuding some reversal of symptoms, including verbal responsiveness in children who had not spoken before. Here's an article: http://autism.healingthresholds.com/wiki/spirithorse-therapeutic-riding and here's the SpiritHorse homepage: http://www.spirithorsetherapy.com/index.html.

re: Harbingers of Autism

VeggieBurger72 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:47:53 GMT

My daughter's head was in 90% at birth and she has never had a single shot and yet she is autistic. Try again guys. It's genetic IMO. Autism per se doesn't run in my family or my husband's family but there is a lot of other quirky stuff. Put two people together who come from a long line of quirky people and you sometimes get a kid with autism. Our oldest is not autistic. It's really not the horrible devastating illness that most people say it is. Autistic people are just wired differently and are just very misunderstood. Just because someone is nonverbal doesn't mean that they lack intelligence. Just because someone doesn't express their emotions in a typical way doesn't mean that they don't have them.

re: Harbingers of Autism

teamdirtdogs — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:21:56 GMT

my brother was born 39 years ago in a developing country. nobody then knew much about it, they called it hyperactivity, they called him spoiled. my mother, an MD, said she knew something wasn't right (he's the youngest) when he never was able to hold eye contact as an infant/toddler. i also read an article about how those w autism are particularly vulnerable to dangers and strangers and it is sadly true---my brother could easily walk in front of a bus bc he doesn't "see" it, and to this day he is unaware of evil intent in others bc he doesn't have it in his heart, he's that innocent. also the warning about water and drowning bc of autistics' fascination w/ water--i pulled my brother out of the ocean when he was 4---we kids were walking on the beach when he saw a boat bobbing in the waves and ran right into the water.

that being said, having a disabled loved one w/ such a poorly understood dx can be difficult, and when idiots (i think there was some radio personality?) say something ignorant like they're just spoiled i still want to blow a gasket. but those of you with loved ones with autism out there, i hope you understand that they are gifts, though sometimes it's hard to see at first. we did everything we could as a family to give him the best education/therapy/opportunities, we had to, but in the end the greatest thing we could do for him was to see him as the blessing that he is. i've cried my eyes out over the opportunities that he'll never have bc of his handicap, and for the difficulty he'll always face bc he is different, but bc of him i've also seen great kindness and humanity in others (as well as slapworthy ignorance and prejudice) and i'm constantly reminded of the beauty of a very pure and caring heart.

re: Harbingers of Autism

CrystalBlue — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:32:42 GMT

When my son was born his head cicumference was at the 50th percentile. When he was 6 months old his head circumference jumped to the 99th percentile. I can remeber when he was a baby he would lay on the floor with a "baby gym" above him and spin the toys that were on the side of the "gym." He was a very colicky baby that constantly cried. I was the only person that could hold him. It was as if no one eles knew how to hold him and comfort him. He was very attached to me.

I didn't begin to really worry until he was 9 months old. I noticed that at times he would have a blank stare and he never put anything in his mouth. I spent a whole day teaching him how to put a cheese puff into his mouth. He could walk very early, but when he relized what he was doing he would immediately sit down. When he finally accepted the idea of walking he would hold his hands above his head. He refused to walk outside.

His entire life it seems that it isn't the lack of capability to achieve milestones within his developement, he refuses to utilize his capabilities until he has perfected EVERY aspect of his achievments. He knows how to the same things that his typically developed peers can do. He refuses to do these things either because he relizes that more will be expected of him or he hasn't perfected these expectations.

The major portion of his challenges with autism are lack of proper comunication skills, anxiety, sensory processing disorder and OCD. The obsessive cumpulsiveness can be contributed in part by his need for perfect different aspects of his devevlopement and also the need to perseverate, and lack of abstract thinking skills. For example if you touch is nose and say "I have your nose" he will fight to get his nose and actually put it back on. If you ask him if he is telling a lie, he responds with "I am a lion ROAR!!" He can be very affectionate and loving but only if he is the one who initates contact. He loves forever and never holds a grudge, however it may take someone years to earn his trust and unconditional love.

It is impossible to accurately determine his I.Q. because of his refusal to participate in the testing that is being conducted by an "outsider."

re: Harbingers of Autism

Kacky — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:58:53 GMT

What really hurts is that I reported all of those things in my baby and was ignored. He's an adult now, but how much more we could have done with him if I could have gotten people to listen to me 2 years earlier!

re: Harbingers of Autism

littlemermaid — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:40:54 GMT

To Crystal Blue,

What a sensitive observant mother you are. EXACTLY! I have a son aged 27 whom I wondered about right from birth. His head was huge at birth 20% larger than normal (so not the small head mentioned) and he was tested for hydrocephaly. But it continued to grow until by four he looked like Poindexter in the old 60s cartoons. As a baby he screamed when I carried him in a snuggly, screamed when a shirt was pulled over his head, needed to be changed in the dark. Utterly innocent even in his twenties, he gave 250 pounds cash, his Oxford Union subscription, to a gypsy woman simply because she asked for it. He is totally loving and affectionate and incapable of holding a grudge. I spent days teaching him to climb a single rung on the jungle gym, slide down a slide clinging to me, hold a pair of scissors, say hello to a playmate. Yet at at the age of 5 he could read a 700 page children´s Bible.

The thing you wrote which really struck me was the perfectionism. YES. He screamed for me to stop reading him stories as a three year old. He taught himself to read in secret. When he was four he took me by the hand and lead me to the sofa, sat me down and proceeded to read me McGuffy's primer. He began on page one -- C-A-T. Forrty five minutes later he ended on page 62 "God bids the winds to cease".

To teamdirtdogs,

I was very struck by what you said about lack of fear of water. YES! I remember taking him into the pool and watching in horror as he calmly bent down to pick something up on the pool bottom--breathing all way the down and choking all the way up as a panic stricken mother had to dive down to grab him. It was absolutely eerie.

re: Harbingers of Autism

Memeyouyou — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:39:03 GMT

Yet another early indicator that my severely autistic, nonverbal son lacked. He made eye contact, he interacted, etc, etc. About the only typically autistic thing he did pre-regression was spin wheels on toy cars. Oh, and his autism isn't a tragedy. It is a challenge, though. After two kids with emotional or neurological issues, I joke my youngest has 'typical child disorder' as she's often just as much of a challenge.