Alarms on Doors - Regressive Autism a little history

[Guest guest]

Lesley,

Thanks for your interest and comments.

As I said, I don't mind the question in the least, although I tend to

be cautious about my personal visibility on the net for reasons

related to identity theft, this is something that supersedes that

caution.

To your question.

It depends on what you call classic autism.

I refer to my son as having what I call the regressive form of autism.

I have used this phrasing as an extension to an earlier publication

that uses the phrase " the disappearing child " .

The shortest explanation of this is as follows:

- His development was typical for the first 2 years, no obvious

defects, no physical manifestations, just your happy little guy.

- Around 2 or 3 we started realizing that he didn't seem to be

speaking as much as we would expect, but he babbled a lot and used a

lot of inflection in the babbling..so we thought he was just a little

delayed..first child, nothing to compare to.

- around this time he also started becoming fascinated with his own

image, he would sit and babble and watch himself.

- there was also a decrease in eye contact and a move to being more

internalized in general.

- He seemed to be almost ignoring us intentionally at times. This

was why we first started by testing his hearing. Ears worked fine.

I could sit across a room and whisper his name, he would turn.. so it

was confusing

- There was a lot of croup coughing during these years, and a couple

of bad responses to shots.. to the extent that we had to take him to

emergency because of his temperature.

It grew from there until we got a formal diagnosis. The pediatrician

was part of the problem in our delay of identification saying things

like...boys develop later...Einstein didn't speak until...etc.

About 3 1/2 we had opted to go for a GFCF diet as it was the least

invasive method that appeared to have the most positive results based

on my research at that time. Gotta remember..this was 8 years ago

and things were still just ramping up.

The alternative offerings of that time called for a lot of blood work

but it was more of an identification that had no protocols for a cure

behind them. So we opted to not make him a pin cushion without some

hope of a cure behind it.

Actually, his night terrors almost completely went away within a week

after eliminating dairy from his diet.

Of course gluten takes more dedication as it will be approx. 8 months

before it is out of the system.

We have pursued numerous protocols and methodologies that I will be

happy to discuss, but because I tend to be a bit long winded I will

stop here for now and take a breath.

Oh..by the by, not a lot of SIB, limited verbal skills, physically

fit (probably more than typically developing children)...

I tend to refer to him as being very Zen. He is very much in the

moment and will respond as that moment demands.

Does this sound like your son?

> >

> > From: Fitzgerald <.Fitzgerald20 06@>

> > Subject: Re: Life on the bridge

> > To: AutismBehaviorProbl emsyahoogroups (DOT) com

> > Received: Friday, 26 September, 2008, 3:15 PM