General Chat

Welcome to the boards Kay. Hope you enjoy yourself. :-D

Namelessone, I didn't see the relevance of Rollos link to a film, but as Caroline pointed out Maybe, with a massive stretch of the imagination, there is a relevance with dragons/Wales/rugby. Sadly my imagination obviously isn't that good!!

MotownGal, thanks for the welcome to the Strictly thread. I keep kicking myself coz I forget to watch Strictly take two!

Dermot I wouldn't go on a Brexit debate thread because I'm not interested in politics, I know nowt about Brexit and "debates" can often escalate into arguments-something I'd avoid like the plague!

Mr Magoo, thank you very much for your welcome. So far, so good me thinks. Everyone has been very welcoming.

Good Evening Kay , my imagination does not stretch as far as obscure links to youtube and the likes either :-D :-D

I don't do YouTube, so I never click on links given by Rollo, or other people come to that!!

I've just told Rollo that on my My Computer thread, and asked him to stop!

I only do Facebook to see my daughter's private page, otherwise I now ignore that site as well.

We were lucky, my daughter and her husband realised that their son had some problems when he was still a toddler, particularly as son-i-l, his mother and maternal grandfather plus various other family members had certain signs and traits.

They're all pretty or extremely bright but social skills and behaviour vary slightly to greatly from the norm. All can be obsessive about things.

Daughter pushed and pushed her doctor and local authority and succeeded in having the child assessed at the age of 4.

The result was that he was bright but there was something there that seemed to have an autism connection but they really didn't know. As a result, the examiner recommended that he be named as on the autism spectrum as that would let him have assistance as soon as he went into kindergarten.

That happened. an assistant in the classroom, access whenever he needed it to the Learning Centre, which teaches social skills and how to trach yourself methods to control upsets and to relax.

Last year, age 9, he went for the next assessment, with the incredible result that he tested in the top 1% on intelligence, but was dyslexic, which answered the question of why he was so bad at reading and writing but good at math, and that he also had these autism-or-not-autism traits regarding social behaviour,

He has since been having tutoring out of school for the dyslexia, luckily daughter's godmother had left money to be used for his education that can be used for this, because it is not provided by the education system in any meaningful way.

He's now reading at his age level, and doing it willingly and with fun ........ in just about 12 months, with several months interruption due to covid. In fact, he now meets the tutor online!

He's slowly learning to control his outbursts, usually when noise around him gets him uptight, not usually as a quarrel with a friend.

Daughter has been told that he will probably never learn to write, but their school system provides computers or tablets to be used in school ............... and we'll just have to accept that we won't get handwritten cards or letters from him.

I'm just so glad for him that daughter doesn't take No, and researches her stuff very thoroughly.

It's obvious that even now, parents have to push and push to get help for their children.

There does often seem to be a familial connection in autism ............... which one might expect if we think about it. But then there seems no connection in other cases. I wonder sometimes if it will be found to be connected with genetic inheritance, as in so many other things that I think we have all seen as we've done our family histories.

SylviainCanada.

That was a very interesting post and so familiar to me. My daughter had to fight to get professionals to accept her son had problems, luckily she's like a bulldog with her determination! It was several years before anyone agreed that he did have a problem.
My son was only diagnosed a couple of years ago. They deemed him "disruptive" in school, saying he was bored because he'd completed the work assigned for the year above and there was nothing they could so. As he reached adulthood he was classed as depressed and suffering with anxiety. He's 40 next year but suffered so long with wrong diagnoses. A few years ago his GP referred him to a hospital psychiatric unit where he was properly diagnosed, giving appropriate medication and is much better now. He'll always have his "quirks" and not be able to socialise but at least he doesn't beat himself up about it now and has stopped self harming as his "punishment" to himself.

Kay ................

I am so glad to hear that your son finally received a diagnosis and treatment that is allowing him to live more of a life, and stop self-harming.

All of the related members in son-i-l's family appear to have suffered milder symptoms in that I think they all managed to work, marry, etc, but they all have their quirks, and are hard to live with.

Our s-i-l gets very unhappy if his life and routine are disrupted or don't go according to his plan. This to the extent that he can only stand to have visitors staying for 3 days though he loves the idea of having visitors! One of the reasons that we now stay in a nearby hotel when we go over there.

He failed the second year of elementary school, and had to repeat it. His mother then believed that his "problem" had been corrected. It was in fact only because he had a teacher in Grade 9 or 10, when he was 15/16 years old, who realised there was more to this boy than the soon-to-be delinquent with little education, and took the time to teach him in the way that the lad needed that things improved.

He graduated from high school on time, went to university, has 4 degrees including a PhD in Education ...........but he was never taught how to deal with the other society related and distraction problems until my daughter married him and helped him find some easy ways. Part of that was her suggesting books that he liked to read for relaxation, something he'd never done before.

It is so tragic that there are so many who have never been diagnosed, or not until far too late, and it is still very rarely that a child is diagnosed before s/he gets to school.

SylviainCanada

Like your son-in-law, my son's very intelligent and what he doesn't know about computers, the planets and space and science isn't worth knowing! :-D I'm sure this is a symptom of Autism. When he was little and undiagnosed I always used to think to myself that he was all brain and no common sense and this is still true today. He absolutely cannot tolerate people in general and never goes out. He will sometimes venture out to the local shop when it's dark but wouldn't ever strike up a conversation with anybody. Thankfully he's always polite and uses his manners but I'm sure people who don't know him must think he's strange. Oh well, he's just "him" and he's lovely so he'll just have to stay "my little odd-ball"!

I worked with a woman whose son had tremendous learning difficulties couldn't live with them but could come home for week-ends but he looked so normal. she said that this was a huge problem because people thought he was rude and very arrogant. He would barge through a door in childlike excitement and it looked like he was somebody with a great sense of entitlement pushing in front.

I can well believe that Sharron.
He was probably only acting with excitement and didn't mean to be rude, sadly "exciteable behaviour" are traits of autismn and often that's a sign for others to pick up on and, in some way, excuse the person for their behaviour. An afflicted person does look normal! It's just their behaviour that's affected, in different ways, depending on the severity of their condition. Some people can't interact with other people and avoid the social scene altogether as my son does, others become noisy and disruptive, as your workmates son probably did. It's hard work at times, especially when they're young,