Can you help me figure out why my son has changed so much???

[Guest guest]

My 5 1/2 year old son, Marlon, was diagnosed with autism at age 3 1/2; he developed completely normally until close to age 3 when he changed. All of a sudden he just seemed really tired and dis-interested in things.

When first diagnosed he was considered very high functioning. He talked, knew his colors, etc. before age 2; met or exceeded all other developmental milestones.Right before he turned 3, and up until about age 3 1/2, he loved books - would look at them with us and label things; was an incredible artist - drew pictures of Sponge Bob that were remarkable, well beyond his years; and loved to color - colored well, inside the lines.

At age 3 he had some pretend play (gave Sponge Bob doll " time out " ); and just 6 months ago he put his toy Gumby on the swing next to him and asked if he wanted to swing; and he would take a toy airplane and pretend to make it fly.

Now, he has no interest in books or coloring or drawing whatsoever. We can't get him to sit still long enough to look at a book with us. The pretend play is gone. The only thing that seems to interest him now is a string or thread. He will pull threads from blankets, his clothes, or wherever he can get them, and wave them in front of his eyes. He will stim on his own fingers - wave them in front of his face. He also gets in front of the TV and waves his hands while one side of his mouth " droops " down.

He constantly bites his nails. He tries to bite others and " mouth " things. He loves skin - will go up to a complete stranger and try to pull up her shirt so he can lay his head on her tummy.Some behaviors that have been constant over the last two years include being very tired all the time, having low energy level, dropping to the floor when he doesn't want to transition from one place to another (or when he really wants to aggravate his parents or teachers). He also whines and is often very cranky.

Behaviors that have come and gone over the last 2 or 3 years -- grabbing other's glasses and throwing them across the room (laughs hysterically when he does this); knocking things off tables; throwing things. He started doing these things a lot over the last few days.

We've been doing bio-med for 2 years now and have tried a lot of different things, but maybe I haven't done enough or tackled the many problems my son might have aggressively enough. I'm thinking I may be missing something, so I'm posting this to the group to see if any of this sounds familiar. Can you think of things that could have caused my son's regressions, and do you have any recommendations for me?

Thank you!