Autism diagnosis

My son was recently diagnosed for autism but we don’t know the level quite yet. And he’s 2 years old going to be 3 in February. It is for sure so much information and also going to his appointments are so much we learn!

My daughter was dx with ASD at 2.5 and it was primarily for social and speech delays. She's a level 2. She's been in speech, ot, ABA, and has an IEP. She's in kindergarden. The difference in her speech from her peers didn't seem so large at 3 but now that she's in kindergarten we can see the gap much clearer even though she is very much progressing.

What we were told was that during the process pruning process where the brain gets rid of things infants no longer need like the morrow reflex. In kids with ASD it goes to far and destroys more than it should which is why like with our daughter sometimes it may seem like a child between 18/24 months is going backwards. At 15 months our girl could name all her body parts and asked for chocolate... then she stopped answering questions and words got clipped like choco. A year later and we had the Autism level 2dx. Well they said therapy in kids under the age of 6 can possibly reignight some of those neuropathways, not cure but help recreate.

The brain develops the way that it develops. Nothing you can do about it.

But, as an Autistic adult myself, it is very well possible for an Autistic child to grow up and have a meaningful life.

I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I would call the elementary and see if you can start the registration process. I got my son in school when he turned 3. It took a couple of months to get him registered. He was in school for half a year last school year and he went from barely any words to being a parrot. The school will do their own evaluation and if she doesn’t meet the criteria for going to school a full day, maybe she can get speech for free there, you would just need to take her, like any other type of appointment.
Maybe the doctor misdiagnosed, maybe not. You just move forward and advocate; which it seems like you are.

That's just what the pediatric neurologist told us. (She also had seziures that's why the neuro specialist)

I will say she's been in a lot of therapy since her dx and we have seen some pretty huge changes.
She told me "I love you mommy" unpromted and unprevoked for the first time about a month ago. I cried all night.

We were told of she continues with her current process they may re-evaluate her lv 1 but that the chances she is ever removed from the spectrum is slim.

So every kiddo is different but i will say therapy has literally changed her life for the better.

My son was diagnosed at age 3. His diagnosis was autism level 2. He had a speech delay, ODD and ADHD. He was in daycare since he was 11 months but around 3 is when shit hit the fan. He almost got kicked out of daycare. He was so misunderstood by his teachers. We did speech therapy for years and we saw little to no progress. Until we put him in prek in a special ed class. He is flourishing. He changed so so much. He will be 5 in december and he is a changed boy. He is finally potty trained. His speech improved A LOT. He is way more social. He orders his own meal at restaurants. He talks to people on his own compared to before when he used to avoid all social interractions. When he got diagnosed, they told us there is a chance for him to go to autism level 1 if we work with him.

So Autism is Genetic. A recent research publication has confirmed this.
There is no growing out of Autism, an autistic individual's brain is physically, Neurologically different and therefore interprets, processes and sees information differently.

I so badly wish I had received a diagnosis as a child and not at the age of 35.

My son will have Autistic attributes, I've already seen it play out and he is only 2. He will be Autistic, because I am Autistic.
Autism is a different way of being and understanding our world. It can be intimidating if it's not something you know a lot about but I promise, there is nothing your child can't achieve because they are Autistic, they may just get there a different way than you would had thought.

Don’t let the level stress you. A lot of doctors are making the level more severe to make it so insurance will approve services. It’s all an insurance game now