@myCarBuddy

Chris - Thanks for the link and you got the age almost spot on! He’ll be four in less than two months. A few things to think about and we do already have a Wii but no wii fit just yet

Alex - I knew you volunteered at a group but I didn’t know it was your sisters kid that had autism. We might take you up on the offer of an invite to the club once things calm down a little over our way.

My wee nephew has autism and ADHD and was diagnosed younger than 7 so the age issue Kirsty mentioned isn’t universal. Actually, I’m not sure how common it is - I help out at a club for children with autism and ADHD that my sister runs and the kids there are of various ages and at various stages on the process and Sanna’s friend has a nephew with Autism who was diagnosed very young.

My nephew was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 4 and they completed his Autism diagnosis when he was 6.

They certainly seem to take their time with a diagnosis to make sure they do it correctly - I know that there’s a common view that there’s a tendency to diagnose kids with ADHD or Autism at the drop of a hat, but that isn’t the experience of our family or our friends from the club.

If you or Vonnie would like to speak to my sister I can recommend you as a FB friend, or if you want to come to the club and see how the kids are there (my wee sister said that she would have found that helpful way back, partly because ADHD and Autism are such loaded terms and partly to compare Callum’s behaviour with that of other kids), I could arrange that.

Of course, maybe it IS just a kid thing.

Anything I can do to help, please let me know.
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Autism is normally clearly evident by this age as verbal and behavioral problems make the children noticeably different from his peers. However if you are concerned about autism, do something about it now, and I mean now. The earlier and more intense the intervention, the the less severe the condition becomes. You might this interesting reading –> http://www.myomancy.com/2006/07/signs_of_autism

It is more likely that your son has something on the ADHD / Dyslexia side of things. There does seem to be a strong genetic trend in dyslexia / adhd so it would not be surprising given your diagnosis. Generally schools won’t recognise diagnosis for dyslexia before 7 years because until then, it is not clear there is a problem. Unfortunately this is too late and the child can be 2 years behind his peers by this point.

Dyslexia / ADHD is often associated with poor coordination. This may or not be connected but it is a strong correlation.

Probably the most useful thing you can do to help your son at this stage is to find lots of time to teach him hand eye coordination skills along with rhythm / dance skills. This may not help educationally (though I believe it will) but it will teach self-control and help on the sport fields when older and if nothing else, this will help with self-confidence.

You may want to invest is a Wii, particularly rhythm games or the Wii fit. They are great fun and can teach hand / eye / rhythm skills. This is not silver bullet as they much be played everyday for months to have any noticeable effect but it can be more fun than playing catch everyday with Dad.
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