My 4 year old cousin has not been labeled autistic yet because he hasnt gone through all of the testing,
however,
they have said that he has autistic traits.

i know of two other children that are fully autistic and he acts just like them.

I was wondering if anyone can explain to me the difference in having autism and just having autistic traits.

my aunt is the one that told me this...
i think she may be in a bit of denial, which is understandable.

did anyone else go through a denial period.

I just want them to start researching and learning how to teach him new things, and they havent, its like they think he will just come out of it, like its a phase.

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carrie s.

Hello,
I'm certainly no expert, but it does sound like they are in denial. My grandson, from an early age, had these "traits." I did some research on my own, printed out pages of information for my daughter to read. It took a while, but she did come around and had the little guy evaluated. Now, he is getting the help he needs. By the way, he was only 8 months old when I first noticed some of the signs. He is 21 months of age right now. If you check the archives of this list, I'm sure you will find some invaluable information which you may want to share with his parents. It is so very important to get early intervention.

[This message has been edited by heyjude (edited 07-24-2003).]

Thank you.
I am pretty sure it is denial.
My cousins mother isnt what I certainly not winning any mother awards.
Part of the problem is that she is very overweight and extremely lazy.
i am not saying her weight is her problem, its just that it is hard enough to raise a child with normal lerning abilities, much less a child with autism.
She just puts hiim in front of movies and feeds him to keep him out of her hair.
I cant stand it.
I come over and he comes to me dying for attention.
She also feeds him sooo much that I think his health is at risk just by his weight.
She will order an extra large pizza and she will let him eat 6 peices, and laugh about how much he likes his pizza.
im just at a lo for what to do.
i have babysat him since he was an infant so he is my baby and i cant stand to see him not get the right learning from her.

by the way...i can spell.lol

my keyboard is messed up so i miss letters.=)

Could you describe what some of his "autistic traits" are. There are so many different 'flavors' of autism, and and different approaches for different traits. How does he interact with you? Does he speak much about anything? How does he express fustration? -meme

well...
he is 4 years old.
he has a very short attention span.
he relates everything to movies.
he will sometimes answere simple questions. yes and no.
he has a hard time with speech also so alot of what he mummbles isnt comprehendable unless you are with him every day to hear it.
He will watch movies over and over again and he doesnt play much with toys.
He is very stubborn with his mom because she lets him do anything he wants, she will sit on the couch and yell at him for 10 minutes and she finally gives up cause she is too lazy to get up....
she lets him eat 10 peices of pizza cause he will keep asking for more, throw food all over his room and get ants, etc.
With me...i simply take his hand and show him how to pick up the food and throw it away, and he does it with me. Or I tell him to go to the potty and take his hand and take him in there and he will go.
His mom acts so amazed that he listens to me and that when i come in he climbs up in my lap and hugs on me and brings me his little doodle book to draw.
It breaks my heart that it is s simple and she doesnt get it.


I was just talking to his speech therapist about how he doesnt relate the fact that that certain toys go together.
like the tool bench and play tools.
he wont play with them together...he just relates them to bob the builder tv show.
When you ask him something he will often repeat you...or stare at you blankly. Either that or he will say a line from a movie..or completely act it out.
He will also go into sing and sing disney songs over and over again.
He also will not go poop in the potty no matter what we do.
The speech therapist is having a hard time with him also.
She has been trying to work on his pronouncing the letter S. because he pronounces it like P or B...like Pider, P-nake, instead of spider and snake.
As soon as she mentions it he says, NO, crosses his arms and refuses to do anything else with her.
She has been leaving within the first 10 or 15 minutes of her visit because she wants to show him that she wont just sit there forever and let hiim do what he wants.
the last visit she had we were talking about how he wont play with toys or use his imagination, and she said she may start a type of play therapy to help with social interaction.
We will see how that goes.

He had surgery two days go to have tubes put in his ears. He did so good.

his mom gve him tylenol with codein for pain.( doctor say regular motrin should work fine)
He ended up getting pretty sick and needed more medicin for throwing up.
After we established that it may have been the codeine that made him sick....she bought him regular tylenol.
But...when i saw her walking to his room with a prescription bottle i asked what she was giving him.
Sure enough..it was the tylenol with codeine.
I dont know if she just doesnt think or what but it irritates me that someone can be so careless with their child...and shes almost 40 years old.

She also left all of the prescription medicine she got for him on the table, and his ear drops on the living room floor.

Sorry...i just have to vent sometimes because I dont know how to approach the issue.

I forgot to say that he also had his adnoids(sp?) removed.

in case you were wondering why he needed a prescription tylenol for ear tubes. =)

I was just going over your post. This sounds just horrible. My son is 4 and is PDD-NOS. Ryan has some of the traits that your nephew has. He also relates everything to movies. His teacher seems to think it is one of his only ways to show imagination. Almost every word hwe says has the B or P sound in it. For example, intead of "stop" he says "Bop". It sounds to me like your nephew has a strong advocate in you. I know here in MD they have early intervention for young children. Ryan goes to school even in the summer. He goes 5 days a week. There are many people that say Ryan is not autistic. None of them are doctors of course. Ryan has been to several different doctors and they all came back with the same diagnosis. (I was also in denial and was trying to find someone to disagree with his first diagnosis) After a year and a half, I have come a long way. Now, instead of fighting the diagnosis, I try to help my boy. I am no professional but it sounds like he may have autistic traits. (It has been my experience that when someone uses the term "autistic traits" it generally means that they have not been diagnosed at the present time.) There are children that do not have enough "autistic traits" to be included in the spectrum. I think you should find a way to get him dignosed. There are many ways to do this. My son goes to a neurologist (as well as other doctors). It was the neurologist that first diagnosed Ryan. I also have a DAN doctor that has diagnosed him as well as state evaluators. He has also been seen at Kennedy Kreiger. (it is a children's hospital that deals with special needs children) They agree, Ryan is autistic. There are many diagnosis that fall in the autism spectrum. I wish I could give you specifics on where to go but I don't live in your area. I hope this has helped some. By the way, if I was in your position, I would be venting too. Take care and good luck.
Joanne

To answer your question, "autistic traits" are just what that title implies. Some kids with Sensory Integration Disorder, speech & language problems, mito or metabolic disorders, deafness, CAPD, etc. can present with these traits due to some specific processing problems that are also behaviors seen in children with autism.

I think denial is not quite the word I would use. I think their atttitude in general of what it means to actually care for a child is at the root of the whole thing.

Until a child is cared for and loved properly- it is nearly impossible to tell if the child has a true disorder- or are they delayed due to bad/absent/uneducated/unstimulating parenting.

thanks for the info...

he has been looked at, he is just been going through a series of tests and different things to determine what spectrum he fits into.
he has started school, which he loved because of the attention he gets there from teachers and other kids.
He sees the speech therapist twice a week...he loved her when she first began to come but now he has figured out that he has to actually learn, and he gets stubborn.
his grandmother told me he did better today with the play therapy.
she had blocks and toys and they built castles and he learned some speech stuff through that.