new member seeking help and info

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Hello everyone! My name is Eileen Sullivan and I am a mother of a 2 & 1/2 year old son named . We live in Avon, in Lorain County. My husband and I have strong suspicions that is somewhere on the autism spectrum; we have been referred by his pediatrician to see Dr. Max Wiznitzner but can't get an appointment until September. I'm not sure what we should do in the meantime, especially because, as I understand it from the few books on autism that I have read, time is of the essence. I have a few questions. If anyone can share some insight, I'd be very grateful. Our primary concern is that exhibits speech/language delay; he says some words, mostly identifying objects, but doesn't communicate wants/needs. The majority of his speech is characterized by echolalia. He repeats mostly lines from books that I have read him and sometimes

videos. (I thought I was doing a good thing by reading to him all the time) I have signed him up for speech therapy at the Cleveland Clinic in Westlake, but they are only able to see him once a week. He will also participate in the Lorain County Help Me Grow program, starting later this month, with going to a weekly play group and having an EIS come to the house 2x/month. (1) How do I know if that is enough? (2) If he receives an autism diagnosis in September, who recommends treatment and how do you go about putting it together? My understanding is that it is up to us to put together the treatment. That seems crazy; do you diagnose a person with cancer and then say, good luck and go find your own treatment? (3) Are there any training classes for parents on how to support the principles of speech therapy

specifically? (4) We've been trying to get to give more eye contact and point to pictures of some foods he really likes in order to get him to better communicate his wants. But as you can imagine he gets so frustrated and throws a tantrum. I don't blame him b/c up until now I guess I just anticipated his need and gave him milk and a snack when it was snack time without requiring him to speak. How do you balance giving in versus trying to teach? Or are we going about this all the wrong way? (5) Is there anyone else we should see besides the pediatric neurologist? Rory McLean mentioned to me a "MFE." Any advice? Thanks in advance.

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